“Ueda’s engaging film is all about two subjects trying to escape their phantasmatic identification with the notion of trash.”
Category: Sexuality
Shaman’s Daughter (2022) review [JFFH 2022]
A genre mish-mash – a cocktail of light-hearted comedy, family drama, bloody thriller, and ghostly romance – that is not only pleasant but offers the spectator a rich emotional fabric to savour.
My Broken Mariko (2022) [Fantasia Film Festival]
Tanada offers a compelling exploration of the emotional turmoil a female subject caused by the sudden death of someone important.
Convenience Story (2022) review [Fantasia Film Festival 2022]
Miki delivers a great psychological mystery narrative, yet it might not be for everyone.
One Day, A woman (2022) review [JFFH 2022]
“Mihiro Kaneko’s incredibly rich performance does not only engages the spectator from start to finish, but allows Yuko’s subjective turmoil, her flight from the societal Other, and her search for an Other that, by lying beyond, can offer salvation to attain its compelling genuineness.”
What she Likes (2021) review [22nd Nippon Connection]
“Kusano succeeds in delivering a quite atypical romance narrative.”
The End Of The Pale Hour (2021) review [22nd Nippon Connection]
Matsumoto delivers an amazing narrative that allows the spectator to realize that imaginary pleasure offers little protection against the oppressing demands of the society and imaginary injuries dealt by others.
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.”
Backlight (2021) [22nd Nippon Connection]
An elegantly constructed and highly impactful exploration of the inhibiting fear of being rejected by one’s beloved.
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.
Gonza the Spearman (1986) review
“A fabulous narrative that offers a satisfying exploration of the tragedy of phallic ambition and the destructive potential of desire.”
Our House Party (2022) review [OAFF 2022]
Kawanobe delivers a very touching and emotional story about homosexuality in Japan.
Far Away, Further Away (2022) review [OAFF 2022]
“A beautiful film that elegantly explores the role the imaginary plays in marital failure as well as in the beginning of a new romantic bond.”
Short Movie Time: The Fish With One Sleeve (2021) review
“Tokaibayashi Tsuyoshi delivers an important narrative that reveals how a societal system, which struggles with the newly-posed riddle of gender, problematizes the integration of the transgender subject in its fabric.”
Nanami: The Inferno of First Love (1968) review
“Hani’s narrative is not only be the best film of Susumu Hani, but also one of the best films of the sixties.”
psycho-cinematography 