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Japan Foundation Film Tour 2019
By Jasper Sharp. The Japan Foundation UK Touring Film Programme has announced its 2019 programme, and it looks like they are putting out a whole lotta love, with “People Still Call It Love: Passion, Affection and Destruction in Japanese Cinema.” Once more, we see the season snowballing in terms of size and reach, with a […]
Japan Foundation Tour 2018
By Jasper Sharp. Mere days before Christmas, the Japan Foundation has announced its annual batch of seasonal goodies to get us film fans through the dark and gloomy post-festive doldrums of early 2018. This year’s nationwide touring programme, running from 2nd February to 28th March, comes packaged under the characteristically all-encompassing tag of “(Un)true Colours: […]
Destruction Babies
By Roxy Simons. In a similar fashion to Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, it’s the violence that does most of the talking in Tetsuya Mariko’s Destruction Babies. With no clearly defined narrative, the film goes from one fight to the next, with each proving to be more aggressive than the last. It gives the film a […]
A Stitch of Life
By Roxy Simons. Ichie Minami (Miki Nakatani) doesn’t want anything to change. She’s determined to keep everything in her grandmother’s dress shop the way it was when the old lady was alive. The room looks the same, the clothes are all made from designs made years before, and she still uses the traditional pedal sewing […]
Pale Moon
By Roxy Simons. Bank teller Rika (Rie Miyazawa) leads a conventional life. She goes to work, meets clients about their accounts and possible future investments, and then goes home where she prepares food for her distracted husband. Frustrated with her humdrum existence, she succumbs to the seductions of a younger man. Finding happiness for the […]