The Big Picture Magazine
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 […]
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, […]
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). […]
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 […]
At the age of 26, the Japanese actor and model Yusuke Iseya made his directorial debut: Kakuto (2002), produced by Hirokazu Kore-Eda, in whose films After Life (Wandafaru raifu, 1998) and Distance (2001) Iseya had previously been cast. He stars in Kakuto, and he also wrote the script together with Takamasa Kameishi. The title “kakuto” […]
The anime film Tokyo Godfathers (Tokyo Goddofazazu, Japan, 2003) starts with children performing the nativity scene on Christmas eve and singing “Silent Night”. It is only after these comforting and delightful first shots that the whole setting is revealed – the interior of a church crowded with shabbily dressed men and women. The dark colours […]
On 25 November 1970, the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) committed seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment; in the Western world better known as hara-kiri) after a failed coup d’état. Together with four young members of the Tatenokai (Shield Society), the private militia he had founded in 1968, Mishima had entered and occupied the headquarters of […]
Nobuo Nakagawa’s Jigoku (Japan, 1960) starts with shots of a coffin in a crematorium and of flames filling the whole screen while horrifying screams are heard from the off. The title in blood-red kanji is followed by the credits next to images of half-naked women in lascivious poses accompanied by a melodious jazz tune. This […]
White feathers falling from the ceiling like snowflakes, the camera revealing a heap of them on the furniture and, after a lateral movement, a woman who starts cutting her wrist with a small knife – this is the opening sequence of Harmful Insect (Gaichu, Japan, 2002). Filmed in total silence, the sequence combines lyricism and […]