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Feature Four Frames

Portrait of a broken family: Masahiro Kobayashi’s Japan’s Tragedy

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, […]

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Feature Four Frames

Transgressing genre conventions: Nobuhiko Obayashi’s House

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 […]

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Feature Four Frames

The manipulated manipulator: Mika Ninagawa’s No Longer Human

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 […]

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Feature Four Frames

Facing Mortality and Living Properly: Masaki Kobayashi’s The Fossil

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 […]

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Director Debut Feature Four Frames

Creating a Cinematic Universe of His Own: Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty for Me

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 […]

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Feature Four Frames

Sensationalism vs. truth: Akira Kurosawa’s Scandal

In Akira Kurosawa’s Scandal (Sukyandaru, aka Shubun, 1950), the aspiring painter Ichiro Aoye (Toshiro Mifune) and the famous opera singer Miyako Saijo (Yoshiko Yamaguchi) become victims of the gutter press, with a magazine claiming that the two young people are lovers. A surreptitiously taken photo showing them together at an inn in the countryside is […]

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Feature Four Frames

Using Deception for Good in Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) revolves around Mr. Fox (George Clooney), a cunning, somewhat egotistical bird thief. The film is a dry, witty comedy suitable for both children and adults; however, it’s greatest interest is the portrayal of a morally gray character. Anderson sets up expectations for Mr. Fox’s character in the opening scene, […]

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Feature Four Frames

Secrets and Deception in Koji Fukada’s Harmonium

In Koji Fukada’s Harmonium (Fuchi ni tatsu, Japan, 2016), deception is a theme but also a narrative strategy involving both the characters and the viewers. This slow-paced film revolves around a family living in a suburb in Japan – the father Toshio (Kanji Furutachi), the mother Akie (Mariko Tsutsui) and their daughter Hotaru (Momone Shinokawa). […]

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Feature Four Frames

Unfulfilled dreams in Seijun Suzuki’s Yumeji

Seijun Suzuki’s Yumeji (Japan, 1991) is the concluding part of his “Taisho Trilogy”, the two other films being Zigeunerweisen (Tsigoineruwaizen, 1980) and Kagero-za (1981). All three are set in the Taisho era (1912-1926), a period in Japanese history marked by attempts to achieve more democracy – both political and cultural. The protagonists in Zigeunerweisen are […]