Recently Viewed: Retake

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

Japan Cuts frequently programs movies about amateur filmmakers—a niche genre that, for obvious reasons, I find extremely appealing. Thus, when the lineup for this year’s festival was announced, I immediately purchased a ticket for Kota Nakano’s Retake.

Unlike It’s a Summer Film! or Single8, this low-key, quirky mumblecore drama isn’t terribly preoccupied with the particulars of craft, the history of cinema, or the joy of the creative process; instead, it utilizes its deceptively simple premise to deconstruct the medium itself. Adopting a recursive, repeating structure (reminiscent of Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?), the narrative explores themes and conflicts that are both metafictional and metaphysical—contemplating stillness and movement, meditating on separation and reconciliation, and reflecting on the inexorable, inevitable flow of time.

Where the story truly excels, however, is in its thoroughly charming mood. Boasting a minimalistic visual style, an infectiously laid-back atmosphere, refreshingly modest stakes, captivatingly complex characters, and endearingly naturalistic performances, Retake epitomizes the indie spirit. I adored it!

Recently Viewed: Mermaid Legend

[The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

When introducing Japan Cuts’ recent screening of Toshiharu Ikeda’s hauntingly beautiful Mermaid Legend, festival programmer Alexander Fee described the movie as “elemental”—a thoroughly accurate summary of its bleak tone and surreal style. It is a shockingly graphic film—in terms of sex, violence, and sexual violence—but never gratuitously so. On the contrary, the often uncomfortably, confrontationally explicit subject matter serves a vitally important narrative purpose, conveying the sheer emotional weight of our heroine’s traumatic experiences. When she succumbs to the amorous advances of her slain husband’s friend in a moment of vulnerability, for example, the director shoots the scene in the manner of soft-core pornography; any potential titillation, however, is diluted by the audience’s knowledge that the man is in league with her enemies and intends to betray her (albeit reluctantly). Similarly, when she mercilessly butchers her spouse’s murderer (her first kill, but certainly not her last), literal geysers of gore erupt from every stab wound that she inflicts—the sort of macabre spectacle normally reserved for the Italian giallo genre.

Indeed “violation”—of personal boundaries, of the environment, of the social contract—emerges as the story’s most prominent and pervasive theme. It is a cautionary tale about power, privilege, and how otherwise “good” people can become complicit in their own oppression. It mourns the desecration of the natural world (and, in turn, the gradual erosion of the human spirit) at the hands of corporate greed and political ambition. It explores how injustice corrupts everything that it touches, culminating in a horrifyingly awesome display of indiscriminate bloodshed—a terrible act of vengeance (or perhaps divine retribution?) that is cathartic and tragic in equal measure.

Simultaneously sensual, grotesque, provocative, unapologetically melodramatic, and absolutely uncompromising in its nightmarish artistic vision, Mermaid Legend is a genuine unsung masterpiece—like a precious pearl half-buried beneath the sand at the bottom of the ocean, just waiting to be discovered by sufficiently adventurous cinephiles. Take the plunge; the water’s fine.

Recently Viewed: Kubi

[The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

Kubi is a film of deliciously compelling contradictions. A period drama with little regard for “historical accuracy,” it reimagines the Sengoku Era as only Takeshi Kitano could: drenched in gore and dripping with homoeroticism. It is simultaneously his most cynical work and his funniest, deconstructing the borderline mythological status attributed to various real-world figures by depicting them not as cunning strategists or Machiavellian masterminds, but rather as mentally unstable psychopaths competing for underserved power.

Kitano himself, for example, leans into his comedic roots by playing Toyotomi Hideyoshi as a bumbling, insecure country bumpkin whose political ambitions are constantly thwarted by his utter lack of finesse when it comes to court intrigue and samurai etiquette; his schemes and machinations depend entirely upon the competence of such unwaveringly loyal subordinates as Kanbei Kuroda (Tadanobu Asano in a role that is essentially the antithesis of his sniveling, amoral character in Shogun)—many of whom he impulsively has assassinated as soon as he perceives their intelligence to be a threat. Ryo Kase, meanwhile, delivers an unapologetically theatrical performance as Oda Nobunaga; a far cry from the brilliant tactician of popular folklore, there is no grand design behind this hedonistic tyrant’s plans of conquest and “unification”—he simply revels in bloodshed, wantonly and remorselessly abusing peasants and fellow nobles alike.

The movie’s depiction of violence is equally subversive. The spectacular battle sequences are chaotic and harrowing, evoking Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight (and, consequently, the derivative cinematic epics helmed by Ridley Scott and Mel Gibson); there is no honor or glory in war—just men clumsily flailing about in the mud and filth, their suffering serving no greater purpose. On other occasions, however, the carnage delves into outright absurdist humor. In one scene, for instance, Hideyoshi grows increasingly impatient as he waits for a vanquished foe to commit ritual suicide—an excruciatingly prolonged joke that satirizes the pomp, poetry, and idealism traditionally associated with bushido.

[FINAL WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!]

Recently Viewed: Nezumikozo Jirokichi

Nezumikozo Jirokichi—recently screened as part of Japan Cuts’ Shorts Program 2–managed to hit three major categories on my annual festival bingo card: Jidaigeki, Anime, and (albeit to a lesser degree) Behind-the-Scenes Story Celebrating the Joy of Filmmaking. An impressive feat, considering it runs a lean, breezy twenty-three minutes!

Based on a lost movie from Sadao Yamanaka (a pioneer of early Japanese genre cinema, whose tragically limited surviving work includes Humanity and Paper Balloons and Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo), Nezumikozo Jirokichi honors its source material by building upon it, rather than merely resorting to hollow mimicry. By framing the narrative as a dream—with the dozing director imagining the entirety of the onscreen action just before the camera rolls—animator Rintaro allows himself enough creative license to be a bit fanciful and whimsical in adapting/reinterpreting Yamanaka's original script and production notes. The visual style, for example, is reminiscent of classic Fleischer cartoons: expressive, but not remotely naturalistic; the characters’ movements often lack “realistic” weight and fluidity, but nevertheless convey a great deal of personality and emotion.

The result is a triumph of form and technique, utilizing thoroughly modern sensibilities (particularly the energetic rhythm of the editing) to evoke that quintessential 1930s aesthetic (complete with intertitles and benshi narration). What a lovely tribute to the legacy of a genuine auteur!

Recently Viewed: Look Back

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

Look Back opens with a shot that seems simple at first glance, but gradually reveals itself to be dense with detail. Our protagonist sits at her desk, hunched over a blank sketchbook. Although the “camera” is positioned behind her, the reflection of her face is just barely visible in a nearby mirror, her features contorted in frustrated concentration. Her sock lazily scratches the back of her leg as her pencil traces invisible patterns in the air, drafting potential scenarios in her imagination. Finally, she begins to draw, her foot drumming a beat of excitement and satisfaction on her bedroom floor as her ideas take shape on the page.

This same basic composition recurs throughout the film—both in isolation and in various montages—like the chorus of a song, or a poetic refrain that becomes more meaningful and impactful with every repetition. Indeed, director Kiyotaka Oshiyama’s sublime style elevates the narrative foundation established by author Tatsuki Fujimoto’s source material; he understands that the inherent power and appeal of animation lies in movement, color, rhythm, and expressionism.

Not that the story is any slouch on its own merits. The plot revolves around a pair of young manga artists that frequently compete to get their four-panel comic strips published in their school newspaper; slowly, their initial rivalry blossoms into mutual admiration, then inspiration, and ultimately collaboration, with each girl contributing her respective talent—creative vision and raw technical skill—in order to improve the quality of their combined work. As the years progress, however, conflict—incompatible career ambitions, an inability to separate their personal relationship from their professional partnership—fractures their bond and causes them to lose sight of what motivated them in the first place, leading to resentment, regret, and inevitable tragedy. The movie's unconventional structure emphasizes this core theme: diverging timelines (a gimmick reminiscent of Shunji Iwai’s Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?) force the characters to confront the consequences of their actions and contemplate how events might have unfolded differently had they chosen another path.

Poignant, emotionally resonant, and exquisitely heartbreaking, Look Back is anime of the highest caliber. It has more than earned its box office success and numerous accolades.

Recently Viewed: The Box Man

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.]

The Box Man is based on a Kobo Abe novel that is—according to my admittedly limited research, at least—widely considered to be impossible to adapt. Although I am unable to properly judge the accuracy of that assertion (having not read the source material—yet), evidence in the film certainly supports it. The narrative is rough and ragged around the edges, so sprawling that it frequently threatens to unravel. As you might expect from a medium that requires concrete imagery, metaphor is often smothered by literalism. The tone and style are likewise wildly inconsistent—pulpy and avant-garde in equal measure; the iconography surrounding the eponymous hermit, for example, borrows much of its visual language from—of all genres—superhero cinema and anime.

The fact that director Gakuryu Ishii manages to wrangle the unwieldy story into something resembling coherence is nothing short of miraculous. A talented cast certainly helps matters: Masatoshi Nagase lends pathos and gravitas to even the most absurd scenes, while Tadanobu Asano (fresh off his acclaimed performance in FX’s Shogun) embraces the inherent slapstick comedy of the premise without hesitation or reservation. The poignant themes, too, anchor the chaotic plot; the recurring motif of false identities—a man who forsakes any semblance of “self” and instead lives as a nameless vagabond, a “doctor” that practices medicine without a license, a femme fatale whose allegiances and motivations remain infuriatingly ambiguous—is particularly compelling. The titular box emerges as a powerful symbol; clad in his cardboard armor, our protagonist exists on the fringes of a decaying society—anonymous, invisible, ignored by his so-called “civilized” fellow humans, trapped in their personal prisons of materialism and consumerism. But it’s the metafictional twist near the movie’s conclusion that truly elevates the whole package. I won’t spoil the ending here; suffice it to say that the audience is implicated as the ultimate voyeur, observing an artificial world through a narrow frame—judging the characters’ actions despite our fundamental lack of agency.

Featuring spectacularly choreographed fights, exquisitely overwrought melodrama, and inscrutably convoluted philosophy, The Box Man is the quintessential festival experience: impenetrably dense, difficult to classify or codify, a little pretentious, captivatingly beautiful, and absolutely unforgettable.

Purchased my tickets for this year's Japan Cuts!

Might book a few more screenings depending on what my work schedule looks like closer to the dates. We'll see, this initial transaction was ridiculously expensive already...

Japan Cuts Masterpost

Here's one convenient link to all of my Japan Cuts reviews—for 2023 and every other year that I've attended.

To highlight a few of my personal favorites:

Recently Viewed – Mondays: See You “This” Week!

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

Back in 2020, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes—Junta Yamaguchi’s immaculately structured single-take extravaganza—set a new standard for time loop stories. While Ryo Takebayashi’s Mondays: See You “This” Week! isn’t quite as stylistically accomplished, it’s still a magnificently crafted comedy.

The plot revolves around a group of exhausted office workers gradually realizing that their shared feelings of déjà vu aren’t merely the result of crunch-induced stress, anxiety, and fatigue; they actually are repeating the same week over and over again. Despite her desperation to break the cycle, however, our central protagonist—an ambitious middle manager who is always looking towards future job prospects—also wants to take advantage of the bizarre situation in order to really refine and perfect the company’s latest advertising campaign; after all, it isn’t often that somebody in her position is handed a literal second (and third, and fourth, and twentieth) chance—the golden opportunity to revise one’s mistakes, no strings attached. The razor-sharp satire doesn’t stop with this biting commentary on the need for a healthy work-life balance, either. Our heroes, for example, are so deeply entrenched in corporate culture that they approach the supernatural conflict as they would any other project: by “running it up the ladder,” with each character that discovers the temporal anomaly subsequently bringing it to the attention of his or her immediate superior only.

Although the tight script (credited to Takebayashi and Saeri Natsuo) undoubtedly establishes the movie’s zany tone, the editing is equally integral to its sense of humor. As in Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Baby Driver, every cut is deliberate and purposeful, creating an almost musical rhythm. The superb sound design reinforces this punchy pacing, with such ambient noises as the incessant buzz of ringing cell phones, the monotonous clickety-clack of keyboards, and the sudden thud of a pigeon crashing into a windowpane punctuating the rapid-fire jokes like exclamation points.

Irreverent, whimsical, and effortlessly entertaining, Mondays is yet another one of those films that epitomizes the quintessential festival experience. What a marvelous way to conclude the most consistently satisfying edition of Japan Cuts to date!*

*Of those that I have personally attended, at least.

Recently Viewed: From the End of the World

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

The opening scene of Kaz I Kiriya’s From the End of the World—an ambitious, audacious sci-fi epic that evokes equal parts The Wizard of Oz, Inception, and 12 Monkeys—immediately establishes its haunting atmosphere. The setting is feudal Japan—probably the Sengoku Era, judging by the war-torn landscape, though the exact time period remains ambiguous. A young, newly orphaned peasant girl creeps through dense foliage, evading the barbaric soldiers that wiped out her entire village. High-contrast black-and-white cinematography reduces the world to a sea of eerie, expressionistic shadows, as thick and dark as smoke or oil. The only color is red—from splashes of blood to the garb of the hooded samurai commanding the indiscriminate slaughter—and even that is dull and washed-out.

Suddenly, the story leaps forward to the year 2030, where we’re introduced to Hana, a high school senior struggling to financially support herself following the recent death of her grandmother. With graduation looming, she’s sick of people asking about her plans for the future; she already works multiple jobs just to cover the bills and put food on the table. Personal goals and aspirations are luxuries that she simply cannot afford; right now, merely surviving day-to-day takes priority. Here, too, the visual style elegantly externalizes our protagonist’s internal conflict. Long, continuous takes convey the relentlessness of the hardships that she must face on a regular basis; the camera, meanwhile, is often positioned uncomfortably close to the characters, with lenses that warp and distort both their features and the space surrounding them, communicating a sense of claustrophobia and entrapment.

Gradually, the connection between these two seemingly unrelated narrative threads becomes clear: the “flashbacks” represent Hana’s dreams—which are, she soon discovers, actually manifestations of mankind’s collective unconscious. With the aid of a mysterious government agency, she learns to enter and influence this alternate plane of existence—an ability that allows her to literally rewrite history and defy destiny. The editing (which is reminiscent of Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and Paprika) brilliantly reflects this supernatural twist: every cut blurs the boundary between fantasy and reality, seamlessly transitioning from past to present and back again—thus creating the illusion of unbroken action that transcends linear chronology.

Although it’s obviously a technical marvel, the film’s central theme is what truly lingered in my memory as the end credits rolled. Contrary to its bleak subject matter—Hana, a steadfast cynic, genuinely believes that her mission to prevent the apocalypse is futile—From the End of the World is ultimately anti-nihilistic and anti-fatalistic. Sure, life is full of pain, suffering, and misfortune—but that, the movie argues, is no excuse for apathy, pessimism, and defeatism. Indeed, it should be a call to action: it’s up to each of us to care enough—about our planet, our fellow humans, and ourselves—to build a better tomorrow.

Recently Viewed: When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty

In her brief introductory speech preceding Japan Society’s screening of When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty, director Yuho Ishibashi claimed that the movie would feature “nothing dramatic.” This phrasing is, of course, somewhat misleading; while the film’s self-described slice-of-life plot is rather subtle and minimalistic, it is hardly devoid of drama. Indeed, the relative mundanity of the conflict—our heroine must grapple with such ordinary, everyday challenges as nosy relatives, lonely microwave dinners, impatient customers at her convenience store job, the monotony of the graveyard shift, and a broken curtain rod that her landlord refuses to repair—ultimately enriches the story; the narrative stakes, although minor, are universally recognizable and relatable.

Despite the inadequacy of the subtitles (which appear to have been either automatically generated via A.I. or written by a translator with only a tenuous grasp on the English language—occasionally rendering the dialogue borderline incomprehensible), I found When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty to be a delightfully offbeat cinematic experience. Characterized by a quiet, gentle, unassuming atmosphere that makes the handful of emotionally gutting scenes all the more impactful, it’s a bona fide indie charmer akin to the works of Richard Linklater, Hong Sang-soo, and Abbas Kiarostami.