Despite some nice visual compositions and some great performances, Ninagawa’s composition ultimately deflates the drama, leaving this adaptation unable to touch the spectator.
Category: Sexuality
Ice Cream Fever (2023) review [Japannual 2023]
A gorgeous stylish exploration of the subjective struggles and the solutions subjects invent within the field of love and desire.
Tea Friends (2023) review [Camera Japan festival]
Sotoyama investigates, in a very touching way, the radical discordance between the societal field and the elderly subject.
Love Will Tear Us Apart (2023) review [Camera Japan Festival]
A narrative that blows a refreshing wind in both the slasher and the romance genre.
Natchan’s little Secret (2023) review [Camera Japan Festival 2023]
Tanaka’s narrative succeeds in entertaining the spectator with its light-hearted framing of the tension between these subjects and the Other they are surrounded by. So be sure to give it a watch if you have the chance.
Hand (2022) review [Japan Cuts 2023]
Matsui avoids delivering an exploitative erotic piece to be merely enjoyed by male audiences.
Tsuburo no Gara (2004) review
“A very atmospheric film that keep the spectator’s interest while making him feel ill-at-ease.”
Short Movie Time: Necessary & unnecessary (2022) review [JFFH 2023]
A quirky little narrative that explores the necessity of forming inter-subjective social bonds.
I Am What I Am (2022) review [Nippon Connection 2023]
Toko Miura, with her layered performance, gives the emotional struggle of her character its genuine flavour.
Egoist (2022) review [Nippon Connection 2023]
Matsunaga’s heartfelt and heart-breaking narrative goes beyond the gay-dynamic to show that the lack that injures the subject complicates and radically determines the way he approaches the object of his ‘love’.
Thorns of Beauty (2023) [Nippon Connection 2023]
Hideo’s latest uncovers the deep marks that the thorns of phallic beauty have left on contemporary society.
GO (2001) review
An exquisite structured exploration of how fictions of nationality fracture and shape they societal field as well as the subjects subject to it and the relational dynamics they establish.
Three little Geisha (1973) review
A pleasant but largely forgettable experience.
Cafune (2023) review [OAFF 2023]
A very strong debut by Haruki Kinemura.
Short Movie Time: Detouring Blue (2023) (OAFF 2023)
A highly recommended short that touchingly shows that what dooms the subject to the de-subjectifying effect of the societal Other or to the birth of a subjective deadlock is a situation that chains his/her desire.
psychocinema 