“A great narrative that succeeds in exploring the very way that imaginary injuries and resentments erode family bonds, by causing a subjective blindness for the suffering of the other.”
Category: Family
Wonderful Paradise (2020) review [Nippon Connection 2021]
A great experiment of the absurd, but its full potential to satisfy the spectator is hindered by its somewhat lackluster composition.
The Promised Land (2019) review [Nippon Connection 2021]
A beautifully composed and highly relevant narrative about destructive kinds of social violence, a social violence against the Otherness present in the community and an ostracizing violence to turn the once-trusted other into an unwanted Otherness.
One Night (2019) review [Nippon Connection 2021]
A great narrative, offering a nuanced and rich exploration of interpersonal dynamics, that ultimately fails in giving this rich tapestry of interpersonal conflict a fitting finale.
Ito (2021) review [OAFF 2021]
“A charming exploration about the way in which the other allows a drifting subject to moor his desire and find a direction for his subjectivity within the Other.”
Short movie time: Idol (2020)
Lindsay tells truths we need to hear and delivers them in an understated but visually pleasing way.
Aristocrats (2021) review [IFFR 2021]
Beautifully evokes how women become victim of the traditional patriarchal elite and how subjective happiness is not found in the mere acceptance of one’s own exploitation
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.
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.
Not Quite Dead Yet (2020) Review
While Not Quite Dead Yet is about the importance of communication and about assuming a desire as subject, Hamasaki’s narrative delivers its message in manner that is, when all is said and done, not alive enough.
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.
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’.
A Day-Off of Kasumi Arimura: After My Homecoming (2020) review [San Diego Asian Film Festival]
His peaceful slice-of-life narrative delivers an pleasing exploration of the notion of the family secret and how guilt can drive people to pay of their imagined debt.
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.
Sakura (2020) review [Japannual 2020]
“A great narrative that does not only show that family happiness is but a semblance – behind the smiles hides pain and sadness – but also the very fact that the subject can only grasp his present subjective state by narrativizing (and, in many cases idealize) his past.”
