With her narrative, Mipo O delivers one of the most convincing arguments to parents to create space for the subjectivity of their child and to take their signifiers – their pleasures, pressures, worries, fights, and frustrations – seriously.
Category: Youth
The Killer Goldfish (2025) review [Camera Japan Festival]
An absurd brutal supernatural fantasy that has the potential to become a cult-favourite.
Dawn Chorus (2025) review [OAFF 2025]
A beautiful meditative narrative about the struggles of becoming subject that will resonate with many.
There Was A Father (1942) review
A quintessential Ozu narrative that, despite its age, still succeeds in engaging the spectator.
Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey (2025) review [Fantasia film Festival]
Seki offers audiences a touching fictionalized account of Akiko Higashimura’s relationship with her mentor Kenzo Hidaka.
Honeko Akabane’s Bodyguards (2024) review [Fantasia Film Festival]
Ishikawa delivers an engaging narrative with some satisfying twists, many funny moments, and pleasing action-sequences.
Rewrite (2025) review [Fantasia Film Festival]
Daiga Matsui’s narrative ultimately develops into something that expands beyond mere romance, a surprising and highly satisfying time-loop drama.
River Returns (2024) review [Nippon Connection 2025]
Masakazu Kaneko convinces the spectator to go beyond the consumptive way of interacting with the other and have more eye and ear for the subjectivity of the Other.
Yoyogi Johnny (2025) review [OAFF 2025]
Kimura’s choice to give the tragical dimension of love a deadpan comical twist pays off, creating a unique narrative that will resonate with youth and those who have kept in touch with their younger self
V. Maria (2025) review [OAFF 2025]
The neatly interwoven narrative fabric, which evokes the dimension of loss in various forms, beautifully sketches out the importance for the subject to construct a narrative to support and jump-start one’s coming-into-being.
Mukoku (2017) review
Kumakiri offers a fresh breath in the Japanese sports genre by focusing on trauma, the ill-fitting of the subject within the societal Other, and the importance of forming bonds with the other.
The Taste of Tea (2004) review
Katsuhito Ishii’s offers the spectator a satisfying kaleidoscopic exploration of the emotional fabric of life and the importance of familial bonds.
Twilight Cinema Blues (2023) review
While fun to watch, Hideo Jojo’s film is a trick of all trades, but a master of none.
Sin And Evil (2024) review [Japannual 2024]
Saito shows that the Other always bears some responsibility for the subjective outcomes of dysfunctional familial dynamics and the criminal excesses that plague its mendacious image of peaceful harmony.
Desert of Namibia (2024) review [Japannual 2024]
Yoko Yamanaka delivers a cinematic masterpiece of subjectivity.