“Miki’s narrative fails to truly engage the spectator into Soichiro’s subjective position and his trajectory.”
Category: Romance
Short Movie Time: Shall We Love You? (2022) [OAFF 2023]
A nice little heart-warming short that questions the connection between love and happiness.
Rodan (1956) review [The Godzilla Project]
Honda delivers a bleak and disconcerting outlook on the optimistic post-war reparative economic growth.
People Who Talk to Plushies Are Kind (2023) review [OAFF 2023]
Kaneko convincingly shows that the symptomatic usage of the plushie attempts to repair the tensive bond with the Other or subdue its overbearing presence.
New Religion (2022) review
A splendid horror-drama narrative that will keep the spectator on the edge of his seat from start to finish.
We’re Dead (2022) review [Skip City International D-Cinema Festival]
A great narrative that explores the irreducible Otherness that marks our relationships in an effective way.
Birds Without Names (2017) review
“Shiraishi is not only able to confront the spectator with the perverse side-effects of a patriarchal phallic societal Other – i.e. male opportunism, but also reveals, in an extremely moving finale, that even within such problematic Other love remains a possibility.”
Short Movie Time: Long-Term Coffee Break (2022) [Female Gaze – Japan Society]
Fuelled by great performances and a visually pleasant composition, Fujita confronts the spectator with the subjective weight of a symbolic commitment and the phantasmatic nature of marital harmony.
Short Movie Time: Two Of Us (2019) [Female Gaze – Japan Society]
Negishi proves that she is ready to tackle the daunting task of making a feature film.
Terrifying Girls’ High School: Delinquent Convulsion Group (1973) review
“A film that does not give the male spectator the chance to satisfy his gaze but shockingly confronts him with violence that is born from the corrupted phallic game and supported by intoxicating phallic fantasies.”
The Nighthawk’s first Love (2022) review [Female Gaze – Japan Society]
An understated and moving exploration of the impact the demand for the other’s love has on the subject’s ‘relational’ signifiers and acts and of the importance of one’s first love for one’s coming-into-being as subject.
Wedding High (2022) [Female Gaze – Japan Society]
Akiku Ohku might not only have delivered her best narrative yet, but one of the best comedy narratives of this year.
Tamano Visual Poetry: Nagisa’s Bicycle (2022) review [Camera Japan Festival]
Despite delivering three engaging and visually beautiful narratives, the short nature of overall narrative undercuts the impact the movie could have had.
Noise (2022) review
A highly satisfying experience that delivers suspense as well as good dose of touching emotionality.
The Last Ten Years (2022) review
“A touching and satisfying tear-jerking experience.”