Popran (2022) review [22nd Nippon Connection]

“A great narrative that questions in a light-hearted way the relation between the male subject and his member as well as the role the real member plays within the fantasmatic world of men.”

Any Crybabies Around? (2020) review [22nd Nippon Connection]

“A great drama that sketches out the destructive effect of the gap between one’s signifiers and one’s acts on others and shows the spectator that what the marital ‘motherly’ other truly demands is not simply obedience but love.”

A Madder Red (2021) review [Nippon Connection 2022]

Machiko Ono and Yuki Katayama breathe extra-ordinary life and realism into the pain, the hopes, the white lies, the tears, the smiles, and the anger of contemporary female subjects subjected to a phallically-structured societal system. Highly recommended.

22nd Nippon Connection: Recommendations

This list does not only reveal the variety of unique perspectives that mark Japanese Cinema, but also echoes that what directors, from a cinematic perspective, put into question within Japanese society.