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’.
Category: Sexuality
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.
Funeral Parade of The Roses (1969) review
“A highly experimental and intense exploration of how the images we clothe ourselves with makes us blind for what truly grounds us as subject.”
Shiori’s Naughty Dreams (2019)
Amane’s narrative is not simply a great ero-horror, but an enthralling experience that confronts the spectator with the ultimately finality of his own desire: his own demise.
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.”
Wandering (2022) review
With his poetic sensitivity, Sang-il Lee delivers a rich tapestry of genuine emotionality and a powerful affirmation of the fact that the affirmation of the subject lies beyond the field of understanding.
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.
Love Nonetheless (2022) review
A modern classic about the beauty of being in a state of desiring and the impact a phallic injury can have on the ability of a subject to fall in love.
Grown-ups (2022) review
An intimate and touching account of the drama that romance and becoming a woman can be.
Lesson In Murder (2022) review
In Shiraishi’s talented hands the narrative transforms into a visual elegant and compelling examination of the desire that drives us all.
His Motorbike, Her Island (1986) review
Obayashi ensures that this narrative, after so many years, still succeeds in captivating and mesmerize the spectator.