Tag: Yosuke Kubozuka

GO (Isao Yukisada, 2001)

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“We never had a country” a student at a North Korean school in Japan fires back, hinting at his feelings of displacement in being asked to remain loyal to a place he never knew while the culture in which he was born and raised often refuses to accept him. The hero of Isao Yukisada’s Go is not so much searching for an identity as a right to be himself regardless of the labels that are placed on him but is forced to contend with various layers of prejudice and discrimination in a rigidly conformist society.

As he points out, when they call him “Zainichi” it makes it sound as if he is only a “temporary resident” who does not really belong in Japan and will eventually “return” to his “home culture”. In essence, “Zainichi” refers to people of Korean ethnicity who came to Japan during the colonial era and their descendants who are subject to a special immigration status which grants them rights of residency but not citizenship. Sugihara’s (Yosuke Kubozuka) situation is complicated by the fact that his father (Tsutomu Yamazaki) has a North Korean passport, making him a minority even with the Korean-Japanese community. He attends a North Korean school where speaking Japanese is forbidden and is educated in the tenets of revolutionary thought which are of course entirely contrary to the consumerist capitalism of contemporary Japan. 

His father eventually consents to swap his North Korean passport for a South Korean one mostly it seems so he can take a trip to Hawaii with his wife (Shinobu Otake) which seems to Sugihara a trivial reason for making such a big decision especially as it caused the lines of communication to break down with his bother who returned to North. Yet it seems like what each of them is seeking is an expansion of internal borders, the right not to feel bound by questions of national identity in order to live in a place of their own choosing. “I felt like a person for the first time,” Sugihara explains on being given the opportunity to choose his nationality even if it is only the “narrow” choice between North and South Korea. 

But on the other hand he wonders if it would make his life easier if he had green skin so that his “non-Japaneseness” would be obvious. Sugihara reminds us several times that this is a love story, but he delays revealing that he is a Zainichi Korean to his girlfriend because he fears she will reject him once she knows. On visiting Sakurai’s (Ko Shibasaki) home, it becomes obvious that she comes from a relatively wealthy, somewhat conservative family. Her father, who is unaware Sugihara is Korean-Japanese, immediately asks him if he likes “this country” but is irritated when Sugihara asks him if he really knows the meaning behind the various words for “Japan” again hinting at the meaninglessness of such distinctions. When he eventually does tell Sakurai that he is ethnically Korean, her reaction surprises both of them as she recalls her father telling her not to date Korean or Chinese men on account of their “dirty” blood. 

Such outdated views are unfortunately all too common even at the dawn of the new millennium. Even so, Sakurai had not wanted to reveal her full name because she was embarrassed that it is so “very Japanese” while conversely Sugihara takes ownership of the name “Lee Jong-ho”. He embraces the “very Japanese” tradition of rakugo, and hangs out in the Korean restaurant where his mother works dressed in vibrant hanbok. Given a book of Shakespeare by his studious friend, he is struck by the quote which opens the film which states that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet and wonders what difference a name makes when its the same person underneath it. 

Perhaps his father’s admission that he always found a way to win wasn’t so off base after all, nor his eventual concession that Sugihara may have it right when he rejects all this talk of “Zainichi” and “Japanese” as “bullshit” and resolves to “wipe out borders”. He insists on being “himself” or perhaps a giant question mark, and discovers that Sakurai may have come to the same conclusion in realising that all that really mattered was what she saw and felt. Yukisada captures the anxieties of the age in the pulsing rhythms of his youthful tale which keeps its heroes always on the run, but is in the end a love story after all and filled with an equally charming romanticism. 

GO is released on blu-ray in the UK on 22nd May courtesy of Third Window Films.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Doing Time (刑務所の中, Yoichi Sai, 2002)

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Who ever thought that life in prison could be so…peaceful? Adapted from the autobiographical manga by Kazuichi Hanawa, Yoichi Sai’s 2002 drama Doing Time (刑務所の中, Keimusho no Naka) is a slice of life dramedy somewhat typical of the early 2000s save its unexpected setting in a state penitentiary. Unlike the average prison movie, the main thing that Hanawa discovers is that life inside is incredibly dull, yet he approaches his brief sojourn in this other world with anthropological precision observing and mimicking the behaviour of his fellow prisoners while making the most of this hopefully once in a lifetime experience reflecting that he’ll likely never have the opportunity to wear such worn out undergarments ever again. 

A quiet man already in middle age, Hanawa (Tsutomu Yamazaki) is no dangerous criminal merely a firearms enthusiast who liked to fire modified pistols into bottles of water. He’s got three years for illegal possession of weaponry and explosives, which seems to be quite a harsh penalty considering another man is doing seven for murder after shooting a man he says waved an axe at him when he went to collect a debt. There are clearly men who have committed violent crimes in Hanawa’s immediate vicinity, yet this is not a traditional tale of prison gangs and factional infighting, the only violence we witness concerns one prisoner who appears to have broken the rules accidentally in thoughtlessness or ignorance rather than direct rebellion. Rather it is, ironically enough, almost like a summer camp in which Hanawa and his four cellmates attempt to amuse themselves during the little free time they are offered for contemplation and relaxation. 

Even so, every inch of the prisoners’ lives is micromanaged by the guards from the way they walk to when they are allowed to move or speak. So entirely stripped of their dignity are they, that they must ask for permission even to use the toilet in their own cell while in solitary confinement and dutifully report back once they’ve finished. The communal squat toilets at the back of the workshop where Hanawa works crafting wooden tissue boxes are entirely open with only knee-height doors on each stall for privacy. The prisoners’ days are tightly ordered, early to bed and early to rise with work in-between and only the promise of rest to look forward to on weekends and holidays. 

Ostensibly a shy man, Hanawa dislikes having to ask permission all the time though not so much as an affront to his autonomy as simply bothersome. Surprisingly he begins to warm to the rhythms and routines of prison life discovering in them a kind of liberation, finding his time in solitary for “unauthorised communication” the most enjoyable of his sentence free as it is of the necessity of interacting with other people. Like the bug collector in Woman of the Dunes, he finds freedom in simplicity appreciating the mindlessness of his absurd new job folding paper bags for medical prescriptions. He can abandon any sense of responsibility for his life, submitting himself entirely to the guards’ authority and surrendering the need for control, happy to allow his existence to be managed for him without needing to decide on anything for himself. 

That aside, it’s difficult to see what other purpose prison could serve for a man like Hanawa who merely had an unusual if potentially dangerous hobby save providing him with a unique life experience he seems to be treating as a kind of adventure. He may at times look down on his cellmates who have their own routines, but otherwise appears grateful for their input and advice regarding prison life often listening to their explanations for behaviour he regards as strange such as removing one’s trousers before entering the bathroom and then deciding to do as they do. With so little stimulation the mundane becomes exciting, each meal a culinary adventure listening to a cellmate recount his group treat of a film screening (Takeshi Kitano’s Kid’s Return) as if he had returned from exotic land relishing his description of the chocolate biscuits and cola he was given to snack on. Time is what Hanawa is doing, but he does at least gain the opportunity of experiencing life in slow motion learning to appreciate the beauty of a single dandelion while observing the absurdity of the world all around him which is perhaps no more absurd than that which exists outside. 

Mio’s Cookbook (みをつくし料理帖, Haruki Kadokawa, 2020)

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“Food nurtures like heaven” according to a piece of advice from a local doctor which quickly becomes a catchphrase of the heroine of Haruki Kadokawa’s slice of foodie cinema Mio’s Cookbook (みをつくし料理帖, Mi wo Tsukushi Ryoricho). Adapted from the novel by Kaoru Takada, the Meiji-era drama is at once a tale of a pioneering young woman making her way in fiercely patriarchal society, and a heartwarming exploration of chosen and re-formed families discovering new senses of solidarity in the of wake tragedy while resolving to extend that sense of community to other lonely souls. 

The titular Mio (Honoka Matsumoto) meanwhile has had her share of loss, orphaned during a catastrophic flood and thereafter separated from childhood best friend Noe (Nao Honda) who simply disappeared. 10 years later, Mio and her adoptive mother Yoshi (Mayumi Wakamura) have relocated from Osaka to Edo though their lives have not been easy, Yoshi’s son having run off never to be seen again following the failure of the family restaurant. Mio is now working in a small cafe owned by a kindly older gentleman, Taneichi (Koji Ishizaka), but struggling to adapt to the sophisticated tastes of the capital with customers flatly refusing to eat her overly subtle oysters. A sullen samurai, Komatsubara (Yosuke Kubozuka), points her on her way by explaining that her food lacks “foundation” which is why she hasn’t yet found her groove. 

Mio’s culinary journey is also one of growing confidence as she learns to reorient herself in her new city life eventually realising that the key lies in uniting the tastes of Osaka and Edo as if integrating the two cities into her essential identity. A fortune teller had once told her that she would suffer many hardships but eventually reach “blue sky beyond clouds”, discovering a taste of that in her unexpected success even as those around her marvel at the female chef, a hitherto unheard of phenomenon, as she climbs the ranks of the local restaurants with her innovative cuisine after taking over from Taneichi. 

Yet her success also brings her enemies in the conservative and increasingly greedy Edo society. A rival restaurant rips off her signature dish and charges twice the price, a customer admitting that many will gladly pay more just to be seen doing so, less interested in the quality of the food than what is fashionable (times it seems do not change all that much). Even so “food is only as good as the cook” Yoshi is fond of saying believing that a bad person can’t make good food, something brought out by Mio’s compassionate nature as she continues to help those around her, vowing to “take vengeance through food” in concentrating on perfecting her craft and nourishing people’s souls rather than allowing herself to be beaten into submission by elitist intimidation. 

Meanwhile she continues to wonder whatever happened to Noe, reflecting that she was lucky in having found Yoshi who took her in out of compassion and continues to stay with her all these years later while gaining a surrogate father in the kindly Taneichi who himself lost a daughter. Noe’s prophecy was that she would “rise like the sun” and achieve “world-conquering fortune” though as it turns out she was not so lucky even if the prophecy did in fact come true if ironically. Both women continue to suffer because of the world in which they live each prevented from pursuing their romantic freedom, Mio forced to give up on her probably impossible love for samurai Komatsubara in order to embark on a quest to save her friend through achieving true success with her restaurant while Noe is constrained by her inescapable life as an oiran.  

Even so the film never really digs into the division placed between the women by the existence of the Yoshiwara into which one cannot enter and from which the other can never leave while the open ended conclusion that only advances a hope that the division may be breached perhaps suggests that it may never be, in part because it depends on Mio’s success as an independent woman in a feudalistic, patriarchal society. Meanwhile the two women continue to support each other in ways they can, Mio trying to raise her friend’s spirits with frequent care packages designed to remind her of home and their more innocent childhood smuggled in by supportive friends while each of them have in their own way found new families based on mutual compassion as a means of overcoming despair to rediscover a sense of hope for a better future founded on human solidarity. 

Mio’s Cookbook streams until 27th February in several territories as part of Japanese Film Festival Online 2022.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Monsters Club (モンスターズクラブ, Toshiaki Toyoda, 2011)

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“I’m disappointed in you. Very disappointed. You’re still in love with the world” a young man is told in a dream or perhaps delusion by a man he respected but by whom he may also in a sense have been betrayed. Partly inspired by the life and writings of the Unabomber, Toshiaki Toyoda’s Monsters Club (モンスターズクラブ) is less a treatise on post-millennial Japan than it is a profoundly moving character study in trauma and isolation in which an orphaned young man struggles to find meaning in world in which he feels he has no control over his existence. 

The second son of a noble family, Ryoichi Kakiuchi (Eita Nagayama) has retreated from “this stench-filled society” to live alone in a small cabin in the woods. In an opening voiceover he reads from a manifesto railing against the “industrial society” which he believes railroads those born into it towards a life of wage slavery from the day they are born. Yet his existence is more 19th century than it is a primitive return to the land, his appearance meticulously well maintained in an incongruous clash with his rejection of social conformity, and he must necessarily in some sense still be connected with the outside world given that he will need to obtain batteries and gunpowder used for constructing the bombs he’s been mailing to CEOs of advertising and entertainment companies, not to mention the cigars he is often seen smoking after repurposing their packaging. 

Though he is aware people have died because of his bombs, Ryoichi regards them not as murder but as a “message”, later penning a letter to the prime minister which he ultimately discards in favour of sending him the poems of Kenji Miyazawa instead. Ryoichi’s dilemma is that, as one of the ghosts who visits him suggests, he still wants to save a world he believes is beyond salvation. The bombs are therefore a wake up call, but an awkward one which fails to deliver the message he intended in urging a corrective course away from empty capitalism towards a less regimented social order in which he is master of his own destiny. “Freedom is power” he later writes, resentful of a society he feels infantilises him by removing his “right to self-determination” while his life “depends on the decisions of others” whom he doesn’t even know. 

It might be easy to sympathise with his philosophy in the Japan of 2011 entering another decade of a stagnant economy in a rigid and conformist social culture in which the rewards of playing by the rules have all but disappeared. But Ryoichi’s nihilism is born as much of his successive traumas as it is by dissatisfaction with a world devoid of meaningful opportunity. Formerly the son of a wealthy man with no need to worry about the future, uncertainty enters his consciousness with the death of his father, followed soon after by his mother’s from illness, his younger brother’s in an accident, and his older’s by suicide leaving only he and his younger sister (whom he has also abandoned) as the last of his line. Literally orphaned he finds himself unanchored, forced into retreat and choosing self-isolation. Yet if retreat was all he wanted he could have achieved it, living quietly alone in the woods with no need for bombs or indeed any kind of communication at all. Taunted by the ghost of his brother Yuki (Yosuke Kubozuka), he at once takes aim at the “system” which drives those who cannot accommodate themselves with it to suicide, while flirting with the nihilism that suggests suicide is the only true expression of freedom in an oppressive society. 

Nevertheless, Ryoichi eventually loses faith in his brother’s philosophy rationalising that if he had managed to find the pathway to the ideal world he spoke of he would not have needed to take his own life and could have lived in “relative happiness” even if in “a forest of monsters”. He claims to have found this happiness himself and urges his sister to do the same, ignoring the ghosts of their brothers should they visit. Haunted both by familial trauma and a maddening demon, Ryoichi makes a monster of himself but is ironically later chased out of the forest and back towards civilisation, gradually removing his mask as he goes. In an ending he would later repeat in the similarly themed anti-Olympic treatise Day of Destruction, Toyoda leaves his hero screaming in the centre of the city left with no other outlet for his rage and grief, but uncertain if this represents defeat or victory, defiance or surrender. Elegiac and in its own way profoundly sad, Monster’s Club is the story of a man haunted by himself, unable to break free from the legacy of trauma and embracing his loneliness all alone surrounded by snow but ultimately still in love with an imperfect world and finally learning to play “that pipe organ made of light that fills the sky”. 

Monsters Club is released on bluray in the UK on 18th October as part of the Toshiaki Toyoda: 2005 to 2021 box set courtesy of Third Window Films and is accompanied by a richly detailed audio commentary by film scholar Jasper Sharp.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

The Day of Destruction (破壊の日, Toshiaki Toyoda, 2020)

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“I want to create a movie that exorcises Tokyo of its possession by the spectre of capitalism.” so goes the introduction* given by director Toshiaki Toyoda to the crowdfunding project for his latest mid-length movie, The Day of Destruction (破壊の日, Hakai no Hi). Set to open on July 24, the day which should have marked the opening of the 2020 Olympic Games had it not been for their postponement, The Day of Destruction returns Toyoda to the disillusioned rage of his early career in a painful wail of protest against an infinitely self-interested society in which there is “a price tag on our lives fluttering in the wind”. 

Toyoda opens in black and white with snow falling like ash across the gate of a shuttered mine. City slicker Shinno (Ryuhei Matsuda) has come to see the monster, and he’s brought an envelope of cash for just that purpose, handing it to former miner Teppei (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) now unemployed thanks to the “rumours” of what might be lurking in the darkness. Shinno presses on alone and discovers a pulsating, gelatinous mass at the end of his path but merely laughs, muttering “one hell of a monstrosity has been born, huh?” as he turns around and walks away seemingly unimpressed.  

Shifting into colour and the present day, Toyoda pans past the Diamond Princess cruise ship, controversially quarantined for two weeks in Yokohama Harbour, before taking us straight into the city of Tokyo and the Olympic stadium which he then implodes with the “Genriki” spiritual power later explained onscreen, ending on the face of a mummified monk. Back in the country, at the Mt. Resurrection-Wolf shrine mountain ascetic Kenichi (Mahi To The People) is attempting to mummify himself as a sacrificial offering to stop the “plague” which has been spreading since the monster’s discovery but his efforts are disrupted by an earthquake which sends him into existential torment from inside his coffin while collapsing the mine in which the monster had taken root. 

On his way to rescue Kenichi, Teppei, apparently a former monk himself now working as a mechanic, encounters a crazed salary man ranting that the monster has infected us all. He’s not the only troubled soul Teppei encounters, later passing a woman in the middle of her shopping screaming that we’re all in hell and it’s the monster’s fault, but as head monk and herbalist Jiro (Issei Ogata) points out, nothing can destroy the evil spirit haunting the town because you cannot kill what is intangible. You can’t end the plague by killing the monster, only by curing it because the monster is a part of nature too. Humans possessed by demons are cured by humans who might also in fact be demons themselves. There is only imperfection and co-existence. All you can do is show the way. 

The irony is that Kenichi, eaten up by rage and resentment over the death of his younger sister Natsuko (Itsuki Nagasawa) from the epidemic, thought he could change the world through prayer fiercely believing in the prophesied return of the Maitreya but if there is a Maitreya here it is Natsuko who appears to each of our heroes and eventually reveals the only real cure to her brother in instructing him to heal himself. Only by changing himself can he change the world. With the power of his Genriki, he knocked the demon of apathy out of Teppei but now he must point the finger within towards his own darkness, the rage and impotence that has in its own way made him selfish and left him blind to the true nature of sickness blighting his society. 

That sickness is embodied in the stadium that looms in the background of the hospital rooftop where Kenichi meets his sister, explaining that he sees no point in competition and that the Olympics are nothing more than a “greed-filled field day”. The crazed salaryman bangs on the palace doors begging to be let in, berating the “politicians, landowners, bankers, and monks” for locking themselves away in safety, refusing their responsibility to those like him. Kenichi says he’s going to change the world through prayer, but Natsuko, child of summer, tells him nothing will change, not her or her illness. You can’t change the world by withdrawing from it, mummifying yourself is not the answer in fact it’s the essence of the problem and somewhat symptomatic of Kenichi’s egotistical saviour complex. You have to start with yourself, but in the end we save each other or nothing ever changes. 

As topical as it’s possible to be, The Day of Destruction was shot in only eight days from June 22 to 30 with editing and postproduction on the incredibly rich sonic experience lasting until July 20 with the DCP arriving at cinemas the day before the release date of July 24 which is of course the “Day of Destruction” that should have marked the opening of the 2020 Olympic Games. It makes direct reference to the official wording of the government advice urging “self restraint” in light of the pandemic and situates itself in the “broken days of summer” of a lost year. Yet for all the fatalism and despair it also reminds us that “Everyone on Earth is a central player, we’re all in the same boat called Generation”, calling out for change but pointing an accusatory finger directly at the camera to remind us where the responsibility lies.

The Day of Destruction streamed for one day only as as part of this year’s Japan Cuts.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

*translation by Ben Dimagmaliw of Indievisual

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My translation of director Toyoda Toshiaki's introductory comment for the crowdfunding campaign of his latest. . . . “The Tokyo Olympics will begin on July 24th, 2020. Starting this year, that date will become a national holiday known as Sports Day. This has elicited a large divide between those in favor of it, and those against it. The rift spreads. A collision will occur. I have a feeling something will be destroyed. I'm not saying it will be a violent destruction. It will be a collision of differences–in ways of life; in ways of thinking. It is the era of division and intolerance. I thought, 'it's effectively the Day of Destruction.’ . I've heard movie theater owners say customers won't go to movie theaters during the Tokyo Olympics. Fictional entertainment and such can't beat real-life emotional excitement. There is nothing that can surpass the passion of athletes from around the world being sent out to televisions in homes. A movie that could get them to come watch it at the theater doesn't exist, right? So they say. If that's the case, give this period of time to me. I plead with them that I'd like to try my hand at what can be done in a movie. That would be the very time to really test what movies should show us. I want to create a movie that exorcises Tokyo of its possession by the specter of capitalism. Only those rescued by movies will save movies. That's what I believe. . I have decided to seek crowdfunding for the production costs of 'Day of Destruction' to be released on July 24th. If this were done through the "production committee" system of which big corporations are a part, there would be many opinions regarding casting or the story. I think everyone already knows this absolutely will not be good for the movie. Foregoing that system this time, I have placed my hopes on completing this production through our and your funds.” . . . He sounds like he means to intentionally cause a ruckus. Stay tuned to Indievisual for updates. #破壊の日 #toyodatoshiaki #豊田利晃 #2020tokyoolympics #dayofdestruction #movies #japanesecinema #independentfilm #j_indies #japanesedirector #japanesefilmmaker #filmdirector #crowdfunding #クラウドファンディング #motiongallery

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The First Supper (最初の晩餐, Shiro Tokiwa, 2019)

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“Family” – what does it mean? The concept itself has been under examination for some time, at least as far as the “family drama” goes, but Shiro Tokiwa’s The First Supper (最初の晩餐, Saisho no Bansan) has it more positive than most as its somewhat emotionally distant hero begins to piece his back together and rediscover his place within it. He does so largely through the Proustian power of food as his lonely step-mother does her best to unite the family by reviving warm memories of the various meals they shared together. 

Yet, as Rintaro (Junya Maki / Shota Sometani), a Tokyo-based freelance photographer grappling with the art/commerce divide, is insensitively told at his father’s funeral, his is not an “ordinary” family. That would be (partly) because it was a blended one. Rintaro and his sister Miyako (Nana Mori / Erika Toda) were being brought up by their single father, Hitoshi (Masatoshi Nagase), their mother having apparently left the family, before he brought Akiko (Yuki Saito) and her teenage son Shun (Raiku / Yosuke Kubozuka) to live with them. As a grown man, Rintaro still claims not to be able to understand what his father was thinking, why he wanted to start a “new” family by bringing Akiko and Shun into their home, especially as it led to him giving up his lifelong love of mountaineering to get a steady job in a factory. It never seems to occur to him that perhaps his father simply fell in love again and wanted to share his life with a woman who loved him, becoming a father figure to her teenage son in welcoming an expansion to their family. 

There is, perhaps, still a resistance to the entire idea of blended families or even remarriages especially in the more conservative countryside. Dealing with an offensive uncle, Rintaro fires back that this kind of thing is perfectly normal and no kind of issue at all in Tokyo, so he’s not sure what the problem is but it’s clear that there is still a degree of disapproval of Hitoshi and Akiko’s union even 20 years later. Part of that might be to do with the circumstances of their meeting which we later discover had their share of moral ambiguity. That central secret, and the ones which spur off it, is the reason that Rintaro has never quite been able to put his family together, while Miyako, married at a young age and now the mother of two daughters, is experiencing a degree of marital strife with her mild-mannered husband (Shinsuke Kato) who accuses her of cheating with an old classmate at a reunion. 

Akiko stuns them all by abruptly announcing that she’s cancelled the caterers for the wake and is planning to cook herself, serving up a selection of dishes one wouldn’t usually expect at a funeral but which she claims are taken directly from Hitoshi’s will and each reflect a particular memory of their life together as a family. There is a gaping hole, however, in that we don’t see Shun. “Why should he come?” Miyako replies to Rintaro’s questions, “He’s an outsider here”. A rather cold cut-off for a step-brother, even one you haven’t seen in a long time, and a partial negation of the idea of families not bound by blood even if it’s snapped partly out of hurt. 

While Miyako struggles to reconcile herself to her place within her new family and her decision to form it, Rintaro chats on the phone to his sympathetic girlfriend, Rie (Hyunri), who has, perhaps surprisingly, not accompanied him on this emotionally difficult occasion. The problem seems to be, however, that he’s told her not to come even though she’d have liked to be there and it doesn’t seem as if anyone would have objected. An agent ringing him at a spectacularly bad time to tell him he hasn’t won a competition is forced to reveal, in the nicest possible way, that he narrowly lost out because his pictures are “cold”, he has no affection for his subjects and it shows. He remains diffident in his relationship with Rie because he hasn’t worked out this whole family thing for himself and is worried he simply doesn’t know how to fit into one. 

Through re-experiencing his childhood through the meals shared with his father, Rintaro begins to regain a sense of belonging, discovering what it was that lay at the heart of his family drama and why it eventually led to a painful breakup. Before all that, however, they’d been happy. Trying to quell a spat between Miyako and Shun over different kinds of miso soup not long after they moved in, Akiko declares that from now on she’s only making one, “blended”, kind for everyone though the choice is theirs whether or not they choose to eat it. Truths are shared, new understandings are reached, and the family is in some sense restored. Their childhoods explained, Miyako and Rintaro begin see a path forwards towards a happy family life of their own while taking their bittersweet memories with them, no longer burdened by anxious insecurity but strengthened by a new sense of belonging that has nothing to do with blood.

The First Supper screens in New York on Feb. 16 as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival Winter Showcase.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Pandora’s Box (パンドラの匣, Masanori Tominaga, 2009)

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Pandora's BoxOsamu Dazai is one of the twentieth century’s literary giants. Beginning his career as a student before the war, Dazai found himself at a loss after the suicide of his idol Ryunosuke Akutagawa and descended into a spiral of hedonistic depression that was to mark the rest of his life culminating in his eventual drowning alongside his mistress Tomie in a shallow river in 1948. 2009 marked the centenary of his birth and so there were the usual tributes including a series of films inspired by his works. In this respect, Pandora’s Box (パンドラの匣, Pandora no Hako) is a slightly odd choice as it ranks among his minor, lesser known pieces but it is certainly much more upbeat than the nihilistic Fallen Angel or the fatalistic Villon’s Wife. Masanori Tominaga had made an impact with his debut film The Pavillion Salamandre and seemed to be a perfect fit for the quirkier, darkly comic Pandora’s Box but perhaps in the end it was too perfect a fit.

Inspired by events from Dazai’s own life, the story centres around a young man at the end of the second world war who has been suffering from tuberculosis for some time but kept quiet about it expecting to die soon and remove the burden on his family. However, when the war finally ends Risuke (Shota Sometani) inherits a new will to live and commits himself to a sanatorium to treat his lung condition. Whilst in the hospital he comes into contact with writers and poets as well as pretty nurses all the while proceeding with his plan to become a “new man” for this “new era”.

At once both hopeful and nihilistic, Pandora’s Box mixes gallows humour and denial in equal measure as the motley collection of inpatients waste their days away in this eccentric establishment which looks after them well enough but promises no real progress in terms of their health. Each of the patients receives a nickname when they enter the sanatorium so Risuke quickly becomes Hibari (sky lark). Tellingly, these nicknames overwrite real world personas – original names are recalled only at the time of death. Deaths do indeed occur but aside from these unhappy events, no one acknowledges the seriousness of their condition or the possibility that they may die from it, never leaving the hospital again. Physical pain and suffering is almost entirely absent though Risuke gives ample vent to his mental anguish through his letters to a fellow patient who has now been discharged back into the unseen chaos of the post-war world.

Indeed, the sanatorium might be a kind of idyll in this era of instability. Well fed and well cared for, the patients are far better off than many left adrift in the starving cities but the outside world rarely impinges on the isolated atmosphere of the sanatorium. Events change slightly when a friend of Risuke’s, Tsukushi (Yosuke Kubozuka), is discharged and a new nurse, Take (Mieko Kawakami), arrives stirring up various different emotions amongst the male patients in Risuke’s ward. Striking up a friendship with the younger nurse, Mabo (Riisa Naka), Risuke finds himself torn between two very different women.

Although its tone is necessarily one of depression and numbness, Pandora’s Box ends on an improbably upbeat note in which Risuke remarks that just like a climbing plant he may not know where he’s going, but it will certainly be a place of bright sunlight. A minor work filled with dark, ironic humour it’s perhaps unfair to expect the same kind of impact as Dazai’s more weighty efforts but Pandora’s Box is a lower budget affair which, although interesting enough in terms of direction, fails to make much of an impression outside of its obvious pedigree. The light jazzy score and deadbeat voice over add to the period feel whilst also lending an air of hopeless yet buoyant resignation to Risuke’s ongoing journey into the post-war world. This, in many ways, is what we’re here for – Risuke, unlike Dazai, has made a commitment to forge a way forward in which he plans to fight for the sun rather sink below the waves.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Love’s Whirlpool (愛の渦, Daisuke Miura, 2014)

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Love's WhirpoolNo names, no strings. That’s the idea at the centre of Daisuke Miura’s adaptation of his own stage play, Love’s Whirlpool (愛の渦, Koi no Uzu). Love is an odd word here as it’s the one thing that isn’t allowed to exist in this purpose built safe space where like minded people can come together to experience the one thing they all crave – anonymous sex. From midnight to 5am this group of four guys and four girls have total freedom to indulge themselves with total discretion guaranteed.

The four couples are a disparate group which includes a primary school teacher, office lady, shy college student, and a brusque regular who apparently comes to the club five times a week. The male side consists of a slick salaryman, a freeter, a factory worker and an anxious NEET who’s cleaned out his bank account just to be here in this extremely expensive, upscale sex club. After receiving the instructions from the owner (shower first, after sex, after going to the toilet, always use a condom, and respect the women’s right to say no), the group sit awkwardly wearing only their towels waiting for someone else to kick things off.

Everyone is being extremely polite to one another, the women beginning to talk amongst themselves whilst the men do the same. Everyone has come here for the same reason but it’s not as quite as straightforward as they thought it would be. Soon enough, people start to pair up an head downstairs but after the initial ice is broken the edges sharpen, relationships change, and a kind of Bacchanalian harshness begins to take over.

Once inside the split level, trendy club style environment, the guests spend the entirety of the evening naked save for their white bath towels but this is about as far from intimacy as it’s possible to get. They may have all come for one reason, but they each had various different motives for doing so. The office lady and the school teacher are both attractive young women, confident in what they do and don’t want, and would prove a hit in any club or bar (though this is a safer option). The freeter and the salaryman could say the same though the salaryman spends half the evening phoning his wife to explain that he’s been kept out drinking with a boring colleague. College girl and Neet are both too shy to get it on independently, leaving the cynical regular and the overweight factory worker as the odd ones out. It’s not long before they’ve begun to dissect each other, ticking off the check list like remembering to buy washing powder and then discussing the merits of “Ariel” vs “Persil” with your fellow “shoppers” in the checkout line. Utilitarian as it is, as the night goes on the barriers fall away leaving both wild abandon and cruelty lying behind them.

Things are reinvigorated half way through when another couple join, a husband and wife duo who each claim to be 100% OK with how this is going to work but, as it turns out, one of them was more serious than the other. By this point, relationships have begun to solidify themselves and shy Neet has grown attached to the unexpectedly raucous, repressed college girl. Such attachments are unwise in an environment like this, and can become dangerous if everyone does not remain on the same page as to what’s going on. At the end of the evening, the guys are asked to wait so the girls can leave first – to help prevent stalking. This is no strings, remember. No names, no phone numbers, none of this ever happened.

This intense need for secrecy is understandable yet speaks something to the oddly specific conflict between repression and the open expression of erotic desire that is permitted inside the club but only if you follow its rather strict (if very sensible) rules, not to mention the arcane, underground directions needed to find it at all. For some the reason for coming here was loneliness but what they’ll find is only likely to exacerbate the aching lack of connection they already feel. The case of the college student becomes the most interesting as she fights both her own shyness and the intense shame she feels in regards to her own sexual desires. After the fact, she feels as if she’s betrayed herself, as if the “other self” that emerged during the previous night’s proceedings is a shameful doppleganger that must now go back into hiding. She wants to forget this happened, go back to being a lonely college girl but for the NEET, it’s the opposite, he feels unreal now – as if he left his “real” self behind in that unreal space.

A sophisticated take on modern human relationships, Love’s Whirlpool occasionally pulls its punches in opting for a satirical tone and only really skims the surface of why places such as these still need to exist. Stylishly shot and explicit without becoming exploitative or sleazy, Miura’s film proves a refreshingly nuanced, mature take on modern sexual behaviour even if it stops short of probing into some of the darker aspects that flicker around its edges. If Love is a whirlpool, desire is a tornado, but where a whirlpool may drag you under you’ll eventually float to the surface gasping for air. After a tornado burns through, all you’re left with is ashes and emptiness. Modern love, indeed.

English subtitled trailer (NSFW)