The Big Picture Magazine
Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s Distance (Disutansu, Japan, 2001) is a film about memories and farewells: the farewells of people spending their last moments together and about the ultimate farewell – to the dead. The film’s story is closely related to an event that still continues to haunt Japanese society – the gas attack on Tokyo’s subway in […]
In 1970, Pierre Goldman, a left-wing intellectual and militant, was arrested and charged with committing four armed robberies, including one of a pharmacy on the Boulevard Richard Lenoir in Paris during which two pharmacists – both women – were killed. In 1974 he was sentenced to twelve years in prison for the robberies and life […]
Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man (Tetsuo, 1989) presents a filmic universe haunted by visions of flesh and metal in which the protagonist is transformed into a hybrid of man and machine. Along with Shozin Fukui and Sogo Ishii, Tsukamoto is considered one of the main representatives of Japanese cyberpunk, and Tetsuo: The Iron Man […]
A taxi driving towards the camera through mist and snow on a wide road – this lengthy first shot sets the tone for Kichitaro Negishi’s What the Snow Brings (Yuki ni negau koto, 2005). A cut reveals a young man in the back seat of the car. Wearing a trench coat, suit and tie, clearly […]
A kitchen is one of the three settings in Masahiro Kobayashi’s Japan’s Tragedy (Nihon no higeki, 2012), and the table is the most prominent piece of furniture in this small room. An open sliding door offering a view into a small hallway and the adjacent bedroom creates some depth in the film’s opening eleven-minute scene, […]
Nobuhiko Obayashi’s House (Hausu, Japan, 1977) is a coming-of-age film that mixes horror and fantasy elements with humour and an undisguised penchant for the experimental. The title itself is programmatic – seven schoolgirls find themselves trapped in a haunted house. Shocked by the unexpected news that her widowed father has remarried while on a business […]
No Longer Human (Ningen shikkaku, 2019) has the same title as a famous novel by the Japanese writer Osamu Dazai (1904-1948). Several adaptations of this novel first published in 1948 have been produced for both the big and the small screen. However, despite its title, Mika Ninagawa’s film is not another adaptation of the novel […]
The Fossil (Kaseki, 1975), based on a novel by Yasushi Inoue, is about the elderly businessman Itsuki (Shin Saburi), who is diagnosed with cancer while on a trip to Europe. The film was initially a television miniseries consisting of eight one-hour episodes because for Kobayashi and for many other directors, including Akira Kurosawa, the decline […]
In 1971, Clint Eastwood starred in three films, one of them being his directorial debut Play Misty for Me. The films in which he had previously starred were westerns or action films except for his role in a segment directed by Vittorio de Sica for the anthology film The Witches (Le Streghe, 1967). In Play […]