Image via miff.com.au
Director Yui Kiyohara’s debut feature, Our House, has a quite restraint that adds a lyrical quality to its abstruse narrative. Continue reading
Our House (Watashitachi no ie) (2017)
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Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda (2017)
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Image via miff.com.au
My film before this one, Ukrainian Donbass, was an unrelenting, grubby onslaught of caricature, corruption and violence. Following it with 100 minutes with Ryuichi Sakamoto was like a balm for the heart and soul. Continue reading
High Heels Revolution! (Hai Hîru kakumei!) (2016)
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Image via japanesefilmfestival.net
It was the topic that drew me to this documentary. Kaoru grew up in Japan, assigned a boy at birth but always feeling like a girl. As an adult, and now called Natsuki, she narrates her early life at school and the challenges of admitting, and being accepted for, who she really is. Interspersed with reenacted drama, this is an engaging story that teaches us about gender identity and expression in Japan, and leaves us pondering about gender roles in relationships. Continue reading
Ancien and the Magic Tablet
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Image via japanesefilmfestival.net
It was a feelgood Sunday for me at the Japanese Film Festival with two charmers – My Uncle and this animation that also showed at MIFF this year. Aimed at kids, it is a two-layered story about Kokone (voiced by Mitsuki Takahata), whose father Momo (Yôsuke Eguchi) repairs cars, and Princess Ancien, whose magic tablet allows her to give life to objects in the beleaguered kingdom of Heartland. Continue reading
My Uncle (Boku no ojisan) (2016)
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Image via japanesefilmfestival.net
I was completely charmed by this family comedy at the Japanese Film Festival. Yukio (Riku Ohnishi) must write an essay for a school contest about an adult in his family. His parents are too unexceptional so he chooses his infantile loafer of an uncle (Ryûhei Matsuda). Continue reading
A Double Life (Nijû seikatsu) (2016)
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Image via japanesefilmfestival.net
A slow burn of a film, A Double Life at first seems to be about the vagaries of a young girl, trying to find meaning in her life. Inspired by the work of French artist Sophie Calle, True Stories, it becomes instead a thoughtful and moving exploration of privacy, connection and compromise. Continue reading
Love and Other Cults (Kemonomichi) (2017)
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Image via japanesefilmfestival.net
My first Japanese Film Festival outing for this year, I stepped in to a multi-coloured tangled web of a tale about disaffected youth in rural Japan. Ai (a radiant Sairi Itô) is rejected by her mother and shipped off to a religious commune. Finding a sense of belonging there as Ananda, her peaceful world is upended when cult leader Levi (Matthew Chozick) is arrested. Continue reading
