“A beautiful and emotionally rich meditation on the complex notion of motherhood, underlining, in a touching way, that the first essential step in becoming mother is the subjective assumption of the signifier mother.”
Category: drama
Short movie time: Idol (2020)
Lindsay tells truths we need to hear and delivers them in an understated but visually pleasing way.
Lovers Are Wet (1973) review
“Not only a narrative about the destructiveness of male sexual opportunism, but also (a narrative) [that explores] the irreducible opaqueness of the female subject as such.”
Along The Sea (2021) review
An amazing and highly relevant narrative that succeeds in exposing the dark exploitative and de-subjectifying tendencies of Japanese society.
Last Letter (2020) review
A satisfying and touching drama that highlights the importance of acknowledging about one’s loss and confronts us with the fact that, for the subject, his/her loss is, first and foremost, a loss of an ideal image.
Closed Ward/Family of Strangers (2019) review
While ‘Family of Strangers’ runs the risk of corroborating prejudices, Hirayama’s narrative also has the potential to make spectators think about the socially embedded nature of mental suffering,
Theatre: A Love Story (2020) Review
A painful but beautiful narrative about the difficulty to instigate subjective change and the impact such struggle has on relations.
Gemini (1999) review
A fabulous and unique romance horror narrative that uncovers the often-forgotten truth that all speaking beings are driven by a desire to be loved/desire to love.
Ainu Mosir (2020) review
Fukagawa offers an enlightening insight into the problematic position Ainu culture holds within the broader Japanese Other and the subjective problems being born in these two Others can cause.
Mother (2020) review
In a languid but highly transparent way, Ohmori confronts the spectator with the subjective and interpersonal ravage the insatiable desire for love and the need for a proof of the other’s love eventually causes.
Voices in The Wind (2020) review [Japan Cuts 2020]
“a slow but beautiful meditation on the necessity for the subject to utilize the signifier – i.e. to speak with others and to the Other – to start the process of subjectifying the loss/the real that derailed them.”
Malu (2020) review [33th Tokyo International Film Festival]
With ‘Malu’, Edmund Yeo proves that he is a master visual poet of the mundane and of the ‘cruel’.
All The Things We Never Said (2020) review [San Diego Asian Film Festival 2020]
Ishii’s latest is not only a highly relevant narrative, especially for Japanese subjects, it might very well be the best Japanese film of this year.
Daughters (2020) review [Japannual 2020]
With his simple, gentle, and authentic exploration of how a pregnancy rewrites one’s current and future life, Tsuda proves that one does not need a complex narrative or a profound thematic depth to touch the spectator.
The Hardness of Avocado (2019) review [Camera Japan 2020]
Jo Masaya’s anti-romantic narrative does not only show the spectator the need for the subject to question their own subjective position, but also the importance to take the other serious at the level of his/her subjectivity.
