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 […]
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 […]
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” […]
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 […]
One morning, 80-year-old Ayumu Nippori wakes up believing he is 20 years old. Seemingly disoriented, he walks around his house, calling for his mother. Two clearly very old black-and-white photographs of Nippori’s parents on a chest of drawers that are visible briefly in one of the shots are a first clue that something is wrong. […]
It is perhaps unusual to deal with Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece Rashomon (Japan, 1950) and another film in such a short article. However, when I watched Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s After Life (Wandafaru raifu, Japan, 1998), I was immediately struck by the parallels between this film and Rashomon. Both deal with memory, the relativity of all things, and […]
Following the young yakuza Kohji (Yusuke Iseya) from Japan to Canada, the action of François Rotger’s The Passenger (2005) takes place on two continents. Kohji, who has fallen out of favour with his mentor Naoki Sando (Yosuke Natsuki) because the latter surprised him in bed with his daughter Hiroko (Kumi Kaneko), is given a chance […]