Audience Member
Not quite what I expected. Well acted, but a lot of violence and extremely bleak. I get that it's probably a metaphor for the tsunami which has affected the lives of many of these characters, but even so, it's a hard one to warm to. The slapping around of the 14 year old girl made me uncomfortable to watch too. I realize she slaps him also, but he starts it. A lot of unlike able characters in this.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/22/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The story has so little hope that you have to cling to that last shred of it to the end.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
A twisting film.
A twisting Sion Sono.
A twisting world.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Lots of violence in a film with such realistic atmosphere makes anyone quite unpleased considering such young characters, also a couple of unfinished business only a longer film could make for it, there's too much content for its lenght. Even repeating itself quite often in a symbolic way it's not much to say the film is impressive, but not an easy one to digest fast. Any enthusiast of Sono's films will praise the return of old actors and actresses even if as just cameos.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/20/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Filmed more naturalistically than the other Sion Sono films I've seen. Still very weird. The character motivations and emotions always don't make much sense, but still an interesting movie. It gets better in its second half. The main problem I had with it was Sumida hitting Keiko several times, almost casually, and the movie seems to almost treat it as endearing and not terrible like it is. Perhaps I'm missing the director's intent through the cultural prism, but I feel like the movie is all too accepting of it. It made me unable to feel much for Sumida as the film went on. And it also made me wonder why Keiko, an interesting character, would just blankly accept it (even if she was infatuated with him).
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/16/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This movie goes from depressing to endearingly goofy, and back and forth a few times, before starting to really pile on the heavy, sometimes horrifying drama. This is not a film for the light of heart.
The synopses I've read kind of mislead, in my opinion. This movie is an exploration of depression, selfishness, and self-hatred. What pushes some people to these insane murderous sprees that we see on the news from time to time.
It is a commentary on some of the un-glorified aspects of modern Japanese society. I would like to think that things aren't this bad, and in reality they probably aren't LITERALLY this bad (or are at least uncommon), but while the film takes some of these situations to the extreme, it does reveal a sickening subconscious that I'm sure exists somewhere deep down in the collective mind of the older generation. And I'm sure it's not a problem limited just to the Japanese.
It does stay balanced in it's message, however. Not everything is black and white, here. The new generation can be just as twisted as anyone, and the perspective we have on this is that we can't see whether or not underlying circumstances (seemingly) justify the behavior or not. While we understand where our protagonist is coming from, we are shown other similar cases, without this vantage, which actually clears up any moral ambiguousness that the audience might be grappling with. Then of course it throws that all out the window, too.
If it sounds like I'm rambling, I'm probably still reeling from it. This is a very, very heavy film, and you just don't know what's coming, ever.
Technical points: I don't recognize Japanese rude words, but the translation I had certainly had a lot of them. A fair bit of brutal, unglorified violence, against women and children even. Some of this felt very real to me, and I didn't like seeing it, but I understand why it's there.
Nice score, if a little repetitive.
Fantastic direction, incredible acting, especially from the young stars. (I tend to find many Japanese movie actors these days to be mediocre, at best).
Apart from Sumida-kun looking more like an 18 year old than a 14 year old, he's done an amazing job of selling me on his character's pain.
His female cohort too, brought such a believable energy to her character, it was a pleasure to watch.
Also to the man who played the elder refugee, though sometimes over the top, he was truly earnest.
I could go on.
Great use of long takes, I do love a good long take.
Ultimately, though, this movie is just too oppressive in nature for me to give it a higher recommendation. It's technically a 5, I think. But, I'll have to give it a much more modest 3.5 for this very reason.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
Full Review
Read all reviews
>
