Sway

Another great film I had the chance to watch at the Japenese film festival "Japan Cuts" here in New York was, Sway (original title "Yureru"), the latest effort by Miwa Nishikawa (Wild Berries).
Sway is easily one of the most well written and thought provoking films I have seen in a very long time.
The film starts with a young man named Takeru (played by the brilliant Jo Odagiri who was also the star of Kiroshi Kurosawa's "Bright future") returning to his hometown to honor his dead mother, something he wasn't able to do at her funeral since he was working. Takeru is a successful photographer, handsome and rebellious who chose to pursue his dreams rather than work at his family's gas station like his older brother Minoru did (a great performance by Teruyuki Kagawa). Takeru soon finds out that his old girlfriend has been working at their gas station and that his brother has a crush on her. Chieko (a heartbreaking performance by Yoko Maki) however, doesn't seem to feel the same way and the appearance of her old boyfriend makes her hope for a better future.
When the 3 of them go on a trip to the countryside, the hopes and the fears of our main characters are to some extent revealed and will lead to the death of Chieko.
Minoru is soon accused of murder and Takeru is doing everything he can to protect his brother, even though he is not sure he is innocent. The discussions between the two brothers give us a glimpse into how they feel about each other and the dialogue is brilliant.
After the film, the audience had the chance to talk to the writer/director of the film, Miwa Nishikawa and she told us that the idea of making it came from a dream, where her best friend killed a woman and she wanted to protect him, something she didn't expect herself to do and which surprised her and made her feel there's so much we don't know about ourselves. She also told us that another thing she wanted to explore was the fragility of memories which personally I think is a very interesting concept.
Finally I couldn't help but relate to the story of these people, one of whom had left his old town to live in Tokyo but still was very much connected to everything he left behind (even if it was hard for him to admit it), while his brother and old girlfriend, felt that they hadn't been able to accomplish everything they wanted in life and that their dreams were drifting away.
I saw "Sway" 2 days ago and I still can't get it out of my mind. I really wish more films such as this one existed.

my life as a nightmare detective...

The New York Asian Film Festival ended yesterday and I have to say there was some really good stuff there.
Most of the films I watched were Japanese and since I have been reading some Ryu Murakami books lately, I can't help but admire how imaginative artists are in Japan.


Other than Ekusute that I reviewed last week, my favorite film was easily Nightmare Detective, the new thriller by Shinya Tsukamoto.
"Nightmare Detective" is one of his darkest, most psychedelic films and is a true masterpiece. One of his two main characters is a young suicidal man, who we soon discover has the ability to enter people's thoughts and dreams. As awesome as that might sound, it really hasn't done our hero much good. Every nightmare he enters depresses him even more and every thought he reads makes him lose faith in the human race.
At the same time, a beautiful detective with problems of her own and her team investigate two cases where the victims appeared to have committed suicide after talking to a man known only as 0 (zero). Soon, the police is forced to ask for the help of the reluctant to help nightmare detective.

Tsukamoto with this film has managed to break the boundaries between dream and reality, presenting us a side of Tokyo that is as hellish as the nightmares our detective is asked to enter. I have to admit that lately I have been disappointed by some of the director's efforts, but "Nightmare detective" is fabulous and its poetic beauty stems from its depiction of our darkest fears.

I had the chance after the festival to talk to one of the people who organized it and he told me that the film that had the best chance of winning was Memories of Matsuko, a heartbreaking musical about a woman who began her life with so many dreams to end up dying alone abandoned by friends and family. The film is really powerful and you couldn't help but feel for Matsuko, played brilliantly by Miki Nakatani who won the Japanese Academy's Best Actress Award last year.

Ekusute

The best film I've seen so far at the New York Asian Film Festival is easily Ekusute, or "Exte", as the film's english title is.
Written and directed by Sion Sono (Suicide club), Ekusute combines humor, horror and drama in the most innovative way and it will please even the most demanding audience.
The film deals with two parallel stories. On one hand there's Yuko, a woman in her early 20s who works as a trainee at a hair salon. One day her roommate Yuki finds a young girl waiting at their doorstep. Yuko soon discovers that the young girl that has been abused both emotionally and physically by her mother, is her niece Mami.
And while Yuko struggles to keep up with her job and with raising the young girl (who at Yuko's request calls her sister rather than aunt), a strange man with a hair fetish named Yamazaki, steals a body from the morgue. The body which belonged to a young woman whose kidneys and eyeballs had been removed, magically grows hair not only on her head but from wounds, her fingers, even her eyes. We soon discover more about the young woman when Yamazaki begins to sell her hair as extensions at different hair salons, including the one where Yuko works.

The film at many times feels like a parody of many J-Horror films such as the Ring or Ju-on (which was the director's intention as Sion Sono who is very funny and witty told us after the screening), but at the same time by dealing with the very sensitive issue of child abuse it manages to be a very strong drama as well. Ekusute is anchored by the great performances of its two main stars, Chiaki Kuriyama as Yuko and newcomer Miku Sato as her niece Mami and I have a feeling it could become an international success when (or if) it gets a wider release outside Japan.

NY Asian Film Festival

I had the chance to watch a couple of films at the NYAFF this week and I'm planning to watch more until Sunday when the festival will be over.


One film that I totally loved was Hula Girls, a film about the real story of a mining town in Northern Japan and the attempts of a group of young girls to bring some sunshine to their community that has been declining along with the mining trade.


The film which swept the Japanese Academy Awards is really wonderful, has some great performances, especially by its 2 stars, Yasuko Matsuyuki, a dancer who after her career went downhill, accepts a job as a dancing instructor in this small town and her favorite student, played by Yu Aoi, who won the Japanese Academy's Best Supporting Actress award.

The film is probably a little more commercial than one would expect from a Film Festival, but it is really sweet and leaves you with a smile on your face.


I also had the chance to see Kiroshi Kurosawa's new film Retribution and like most of Kurosawa's films (no relation to Akira Kurosawa) it's full of ghosts, doppelgangers (or maybe not?) and many other supernatural references, while at the same time dealing with what is at the heart of all his films: our loneliness.

The always excellent, Koji Yakusho (Babel), plays a detective, who after discovering the body of a woman drowned in seawater begins to fear that it was him who committed the crime, even though he has no recollection of such an event. A series of similar murders and the strange behavior of the murderers leads him to a downward spiral from which there appears to be no escape. As with all of Kurosawa's films, the film lacks any type of structure and even when you expect a Hollywood ending, you get the exact opposite. I didn't like it as much as his previous film, Bright future, (one of my favorite films of 2003) but it's still one of the best I've seen lately and one of the most horrifying portrayals of what we as human beings are capable of and how lonely one can be in the world's largest city.

Control

Having been a Joy Division for more than 10 years I was very excited to see the trailer of this new film by Anton Corbijn. Corbijn who is more known for his music videos and for his work as a photographer, decided to make a film about a band he admired and the word from Cannes, is that Control exceeds expectations. Joy Division were not just one of the greatest, if not the greatest band of the post-punk era, but they also happened to be led by the charismatic singer Ian Curtis, whose suicide at the age of 23 added him to the rock pantheon, next to Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain.
The film is to a large extent based on Touching from a distance, the wonderful book by Deborah Curtis (Ian's wife) and according to almost everyone who knew Ian and was around the band at the time, it remains faithful to the true story. The distribution rights for the United States were bought at Cannes by the Weinstein brothers, which on one hand is good because at least now we know we will get to see the film at some point, on the other hand, I do worry about how Harvey will treat it and whether he will wait till 2008 to release it.
But enough of that. I have high hopes for this film and here's a 4 minute trailer for you!

My Blueberry Nights

I had the incredible luck of getting to see Wong Kar-Wai's new film, My Blueberry Nights a couple of days ago. I am not a Wong worshiper, but I do love his films, especially In the mood for love and Chungking Express . I also admire 2046, but I don't love it as many others do, probably because I felt the characters were not developed enough for me to relate to them. That's probably what bothered me the most about Blueberry Nights as well.
One thing I have to admit though, is that the film is beautifully shot and there's so much poetry in every scene that in the end you forget all the awkward moments.
Basically, the film deals with a young NY woman (a wonderful Norah Jones), fresh from a break-up, who walks into a bar run by young man from Manchester (a good performance by Jude Law). After a few nights of eating blueberry pie with ice-cream and sulking over her ex, our hero decides to leave NY and go on a trip across the country. Traveling from NY to Memphis and from there to Las Vegas, she works as a waitress meeting several colorful characters that will change the way she sees things.
Even though the characters played by David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman were not developed enough for me to understand them, in the end of her journey we feel that we have learned something as well and I guess that's the film's greatest accomplishment.
The film isn't perfect, but it will leave you with a smile on your face. At least that's what happened to me.

Welcome to my blog!

First of all I would like to introduce myself. I am a film/music/book lover who wanted to start a blog where I could discuss everything that I like.
I'm making a start with my film blog but I am planning to add more sections later.
I would like to add some other writers as well.
Anyway, that's all for now and I hope that anyone who stops by, will have a good time.