Hideo Jojo offers a compelling exploration of poverty within the Japanese societal field as well as the the structural possibility of exploiting the welfare system for one’s own gain.
Category: Socially engaged narrative
Revolution +1 (2022) Review
Masao Adachi delivers an important political statement that, by offering an evocative sketch of Tetsuya Yamagami’s tragic trajectory, invites the Japanese spectator to question his own passivity towards the political Other.
Short Movie Time: Hail Mary (2023) review [Japan Cuts 2024]
Nakamura succeeds in making the spectator care for Maria and impact him/her emotionally with her tragedy.
Blue Imagine (2024) review [OAFF 2024]
A powerful reminder of the sexual transgressions that structurally plague the Japanese film industry
Robinson’s Garden (1988) [Japan Cuts 2021]
“Yamamoto is not able to create a composition that engages the spectator with its highly relevant message.”
A Far Shore (2022) review
A highly engaging story that explores the destructive effects of a societal field that fails to reach out to subjects-in-need.
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.
The Burden Of The Past (2023) review [OAFF 2023]
With his latest drama film, Funahashi’s delivers a contender for this year’s best Japanese film.
Pulse (2001) review
“An extra-ordinary apocalyptic horror narrative that explores, in a refined way, the destructive impact of consumption – the pulsating attraction of injecting solitary enjoyment by engaging with gadgets and screens – on our subjective position and the fabric of bonds that surrounds us.”
Pale Flower (1964) review
“A ‘seductive’ nihilistic masterpiece that explores the unescapable subjective problems created by the rhythmic capitalistic machinery.”
Stone Steps (2022) review [JFFH 2022]
A great indie narrative that highlights the need for the parental and the traditional Other to aid the subject to embark on the path of his own desire.
Intolerance (2021) [22nd Nippon Connection]
Yoshida’s narrative hits all the right emotional notes for the audience and that its message will long linger in the spectator’s mind.
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.
Random Call (2022) review [OAFF 2022]
Ohkanda’s narrative proves that one does not need a big budget to deliver a narrative that touches the spectator.
Angry Son (2022) review [OAFF 2022]
“An incredibly rich and deep narrative that not only delivers a satisfying coming-of-age story but also an elegantly delivered social commentary on some of the frictions marking Japanese society.”
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