Rising. Films reviewed: Backspot, The Goldman Case, Handling the Undead
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto’s Spring Film Festival Season continues with Inside Out closing, TJFF opening, and soon followed by three more: the Toronto Japanese Film Fest offers you the chance to watch the best of contemporary Japanese cinema, including samurai, anime, dramas and arthouse films, running June 6-20 at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre; The Future of Film Showcase celebrating rising young Canadian talent with three world premieres, including the directorial debut for actor Aaron Poole, at the lovely Paradise Theatre from June 20-23; and the ICFF Lavazza Inclucity festival set for June 27th and continuing through most of July, featuring films from Italy and around the world, accompanied by delicious food and projected, outdoors, on a giant screen in the Distillery District.
But this week I’m looking at three new features. There’s an ambitious young cheerleader trying to rise to the top; a convicted criminal trying to elevate his innocence; and dead bodies rising from their graves.
Backspot
Co-Wri/Dir: D.W. Waterson
Riley (Devery Jacobs) is a high school student obsessed with cheerleading. Along with her best friend — and girlfriend — Amanda (Kudakwashe Rutendo) they hope to get a place on with the Thunderhawks squad, the highly competitive award-winning varsity team at their school. They do handsprings, half turns and everything else they need, to qualify, acrobatically. But despite how hard they try, it seems unlikely. Until that team has an accident leaving three empty spots open to new members. And no one is more surprised than Riley and Amanda when they both win places. (Riley is the back spot — part of the base of the human formations they build on the floor.) The third member, for the centre spot, is Tracy (Shannyn Sossamon) known for her slim build, perfect face and hair. As not-so-perfect cheerleaders point out, it’s as much about your looks as it is about your talent.
The Thunderhawks is headed by two alpha leaders: the cold-as-ice head coach Eileen (Evan Rachel Wood) of the “winning is 
everything” school of thought; and assistant coach Devon (Thomas Antony Olajide) just as much of a perfectionist, but with a hidden secret life. Before joining the Thunderhawks, Riley and Amanda were inseparable, cuddling at the movies while pigging out on popcorn and liquorice (Amanda is a part-timer at a movie theatre). But as Riley becomes more and more tense, her hear of failure turning into panic attacks, they wonder whether their relationship can stand this much pressure. Can Riley balance her sports life with her love life and family? Can she survive all the potential accidents that come with the sport? Or will it drive her off the cliff?
Backspot is a good sports movie about friendships, relationships and competition. It’s a local film, set in Toronto, and stars indigenous actress Devery Jacobs (known for Reservation Dogs) of the Kahnawa:ke Mohawk nation, in a very strong performance. And they all seem to do their own stunts and acrobatics, which is very impressive. I like both the sports parts and the home parts of the film. The one small thing I wish for, though, is more camera time spent on the actual performance and less on the endless rehearsals and training. The grand finale has less oomph than its lead up. Still, it’s an exciting and moving portrait of women’s sports.
The Goldman Case
Dir: Cédric Kahn
It’s the 1970s in a Paris courtroom. Pierre Goldman (Arieh Worthalter) is on trial for the murder of two women in the armed robbery of a pharmacy. He was convicted of this crime earlier, but has always pled innocent to that crime, and is now at a retrial of his case. He wrote a celebrated autobiography in prison, outlining his story, and many supporters are there in the courtroom, calling for his freedom. Born in German-occupied France to two Jewish Polish-born Communist members of the French resistance, he later became a radical leftist himself. He travelled to Cuba and Venezuela to join the revolutionaries there, but rejected the protests of 1968 as a performance. In Paris he supported himself through small-scale holdups and robberies. He admits to those crimes but not to violence or murder, insists he would never kill someone, especially not a woman, and would never rat out another person to the authorities, even if their testimony could set him free.
At the trial, Goldman is a loose cannon, interrupting his own lawyers, calling the court system a farce, and accusing he police force as being a racist organization. His lawyer (Arthur Harari) is increasingly frustrated, saying Goldman is committing suicide with his impromptu testimony. But will he be found guilty or innocent of the crimes of murder?
The Goldman Case is a powerful, dramatic retelling of an actual 
famous trial. No flashbacks, no memories, no reenactments of the crime, merely a series of witnesses, testimonies and cross-examinations. Just the facts. The acting is superb, with Arieh Worthalter winning this year’s Cesar for best actor for his amazing characterization of Goldman. In North America, we’re inundated by such trials — both real and imaginary — in the news, on TV shows, and in courtroom dramas. But French trials — which portray a very different legal system — are becoming increasingly popular, in films such as Anatomy of a Fall and Saint Omer. There’s a different kind of emotion and drama there. Courtroom dramas can be tedious, but this one kept my attention. I wanted to see this movie because its director Cedric Kahn tells stories like this of non-conformist anti-heroes who reject mainstream society while holding onto certain core beliefs. This one fills that pattern exactly. The Goldman Case is an intriguing drama about real events.
Handling the Undead
Co-Wri/Dir: Thea Hvistendahl
It’s present-day Oslo, Norway. Three families are going through a period of mourning, having lost people near and dear to their hearts. A single mom (Renate Reinsve) and father Mahler have been catatonic since the death of her little boy. She works in an industrial kitchen, while he is retired, but they can barely speak to one another. An elderly woman (Bente Børsum) is bereft when her longtime romantic lover and partner dies. She misses dancing and talking and listening to music together. And when Eva dies in an unexpected accident, her close-knit family — her husband, David (Anders Danielsen Lie: The Worst Person in the World, Oslo, August 31st ) a standup comic, their rebellious teenage daughter Flora, and their young son Kian — is left shocked and rudderless. They walk through their day on autopilot, celebrating the boy’s birthday but with little happiness.
But something strange is in the air after a city-wide power outage. Grandpa — who slept on his grandson’s grave — hears a knocking underground. He digs up the coffin, and carries him home with him. David is in hospital when his wife — who died in the accident — seems to stir again. And when Tora reclaims her lover’s living body from her casket laying in state at the funeral home, she feels like it’s a gift of the gods Somehow, the dead are waking up again. But are they still the same people the living remember?
Handling the Undead is a very slow and low-key horror movie about how ordinary people react to a seeming miracle, despite all indications to the countrary. It’s beautiful shot indoors and out among natural beauty and scenic islands on the water. And it has a compelling soundtrack. It’s based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist who also wrote Let the Right One In, and like that one, despite elements of the supernatural, much of the story is devoted 
to ordinary mundane lives. So part of the movie is devoted to the rebellious daughter and her boyfriend, just hanging out in their shack smoking drugs and having sex — nothing to do with the undead. There are also repeated scenes of ritual cleansing of the dead bodies, both loving and grotesque. The living interact with the undead, with one, the single mom, going so far as to carry her son to a cabin on an isolated island, to avoid trouble with the police. But there’s a dark enveloping metaphoric cloud of misery and sorrow hanging over city that seems totally empty and deserted. If you’re looking for a screaming, bloody, slasher film, you’re looking in the wrong place. But if you like pondering, pensive, Nordic art-house horror… this is a good one for you.
The Goldman case is playing at the Toronto Jewish film festival, and Handling the Dead and Backspot both open theatrically this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website
culturalmining.com.
From Paper to Film. Films reviewed: My Name is Andrea, The Zen Diary
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto’s Spring Film Festival season continues with the Jewish Film festival closing this weekend and the Japanese Film Festival just starting up. And ICFF, the Italian Contemporary Film Festival starting in two weeks.
This week, I’m looking at two new movies playing at the two TJFFs, both based on writings and their writers. There is a radical feminist on violence against women, and a zen Buddhist on sustainable vegetarianism.
My Name is Andrea
Wri/Dir: Pratibha Parmar
Based on the writings of Andrea Dworkin
Andrea Dworkin was a poet, a writer and a radical feminist theorist who wrote about the outrage of violence against women, abuse, harassment and rape. Born in the 1940s in Camden, NJ, she grew up in a happy, middle-class family in suburban Cherry Hill. She was assaulted as a teenager, and later, as a college student protesting against the War in Vietnam, she was arrested and sent to the notorious Women’s House of Detention in New York. There she and other political prisoners were subject to horrible abuses by the doctors there. (Her testimony against the prison led to its eventual closing.) She travelled to Europe where she was exposed to the writings of Franz Fanon, Kate Millet and others, which, together with her own experiences, helped develop her radical feminist theory that the patriarchal system of power was based on violence against. And as a poet
and writer, she expanded her critique to include the arts by deconstructing the male gaze within literature
She was also an activist, participating in movements like Take Back the Streets, the aftermath of the École Polytechnique massacre and later, along with Catherine McKinnon, in the movement of Women Against Pornography. She died in 2005.
My Name is Andrea is an unusual biographical documentary, that looks at Dworkin’s life, her writings and her philosophy. It includes early home movies, TV footage and personal letters and notes. What’s unusual is there’s no outside narrator or recent talking heads; instead it relies on recordings of her own voice (and those of other people she talked to) to advance the narrative. And since much of her writing was never recorded, 
a number of actors — including Christine Lahti, Ashley Judd and Amandla Stenberg — take on her role. I’ve read some of her writing before but this is one of the first times I’ve heard her voice and she was an extremely passionate speaker, whether giving a speech at Cambridge or on the Phil Donahue show. And it also lets her own voice defend herself from misrepresentation of her ideas (at various times she was accused of hating men, of calling intercourse rape, and of advocating obscenity laws). My Name is Andrea is a fascinating tribute to Dworkin’s work.
The Zen Diary
Wri/Dir: Yuji Nakae
Based on the book “Tsuchi wo Kurau Hibi; Waga Shojin Juuni ka Getsu” by Mizukami Tsutomu
Tsutomu (Sawada Kenji) is a prize-winning Japanese novelist who lives alone in a remote farmhouse in the mountains. His wife died 13 years earlier but he still keeps her ashes. He’s under pressure by Machiko, his publisher (Matsu Takako ) to write another book, so he decides to record what happens each month over the course of a year (hence the title). Interestingly, while this includes big events in his life, it’s also about the minutiae of living. As a kid, he was a novice monk at a Buddhist monastery in Kyoto, where he was trained in cooking, cleaning, planting, harvesting and foraging for food. He brings those childhood memories into play as an elderly man who is also a vegetarian.
Everything he does is done by hand: from cleaning rice to finding edible roots in the garden. He digs up bamboo shoots in a forest and looks for mushrooms and fiddleheads on the hillside. Even seemingly inedible vegetables — like the first sprouts of certain tree leaves in the spring — are delicately picked, scrubbed clean, cut-up and cooked. He shines the wooden floor on his hands and knees. He also visits his elderly mother-in-law who lives 
in a tiny shack, and trades foods with far-off neighbours. But a surprise death — and the threat of his own mortality — makes him rethink his daily life. Should he settle things and prepare to die? Or forge ahead with new projects?
The Zen Diary is a subtle, low-key drama about life off the grid. It feels almost like a documentary, but the parts are actually all played by actors (Sawada Kenji has been a pop idol, composer, actor and celebrity for 60 years.) And the book it’s based on is real — it’s Mizukami Tsutomu’s last work (he died in 2004). There’s something deeply satisfying and 
inspiring about watching the foods being made from the dirt to the table — and some of the dishes he makes, like tofu made from sesame seeds and daikon with miso, look truly delicious. It’s also a bittersweet story about death and remembrance, family, kinship and relationships. The storyline is simple, and the film is extremely low-key, but it leaves you with something you didn’t have deep inside you before you saw this movie.
The Zen Diary is playing at the Japanese Canadian Culture Centre on June 17th, at the Toronto Japanese Film Festival; and My Name is Andrea played at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Cults and kidnappers. Films reviewed: The Black Phone, One Summer Story
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Spring film festival season continues in Toronto with the Japanese and Jewish film festivals coming to a close, while ICFF — the Italian contemporary film festival — and Lavazza IncluCity are just beginning. The festival features film composer Ennio Morricone, Giuseppe Tornatore (who won an Oscar for Cinema Paradiso), and Allesandro Gassmann, the son of star Vittorio Gassman, and an accomplished actor in his own right. Movies at this festival are being shown both in theatres and outdoors in open air screenings.
This week, I’m looking at two new movies. There’s a thriller-horror about a boy who is kidnapped in 1970s Colorado; and a girl who discovers her biological father was a member of a religious cult in Japan.
The Black Phone
Dir: Scott Derrickson
It’s the late 1970s in Denver, Colorado. Finney (Mason Thames) is a kid in junior high who lives with his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), and their angry and depressed dad, a widower. Finney is into rocket ships and baseball — he’s the pitcher on his team. But he’s bullied at school. Luckily his best friend Robin is always looking out for him.
But all is not well in Denver. Teenagers are disappearing, one by one, with no bodies ever found. But when Robin disappears, he turns to Gwen for help — she has psychic dreams that might tell them where he is. But before they can do anything, Finney finds himself locked in a basement cell, somewhere in the city. theres just a toilet, a mattress, and a barred window way up near the ceiling. And an old black phone mounted on the wall, but with all the wires cut. The guy who kidnapped him — known as the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) — is a freelance magician who always covers his face with hideous 
masks reflecting changes in his warped psyche. Before long, Finney is in despair and figures he’s going to be killed soon, just like the other boys before him. Until… the black phone starts to ring! And coming from somewhere is the voice of one of the previous victims, who says he can tell Finney how to escape.
Is this real or just his imagination? Can the dead really speak? And will Finney ever get out of there?
The Black Phone is a fantastic thriller about a kid vs a deranged serial killer. Though billed as a horror movie, and there are some very scary scenes here and there, it’s miles ahead above most of the gory schlock passing for horror movies these days. This one is more about suspense, mystery and adventure than meaningless, gratuitous violence. There is violence, but it fits within the movie. The characters are all well-rounded with complex back stories. There are lots of red herrings to lead you astray, but the whole movie leaves you with a sense of satisfaction, not dread. And it avoids the cheap scares typical of many horror flicks. The film perfectly captures the feel of the 1970s, through the rock soundtrack, costumes and locations. The acting — especially heroes McGraw and Thames, as well as the villains including the creepy killer and the brooding father, and the many school bullies — is really well done. The Black Phone is based on a story by Joe Hill, who also 
wrote the graphic novel the great TV series Locke & Key was based on. He’s an amazing storyteller… who also happens to be Stephen King’s son. (I mention that because he’s of the same calibre). And writer-director Scott Derickson has done some good stuff himself.
If you don’t want to be scared — stay far away. But if you’re looking for a good chiller-thriller, you’re really gonna like this one.
One Summer Story (Kodomo ha Wakatteagenai)
Dir: Okita Shûichi
It’s present-day Japan. Minami (Kamishiraishi Moka) is a teenaged girl who lives with her Mum, stepfather, and little brother. Backstroke is her thing — she’s on the school swim team. And she’s obsessed with a TV anime series called Koteko, about a Count who is literally a royal sack of cement and his two gloopy sons Concrete and Plaster. One day she’s at a swim practice when she sees something unbelievable on the roof of their school: a boy is painting something on a large easel. could it be true? she runs over to take a look. A boy is painting a character from her favourite anime series. They hit it iff immediately.
Moji-kun (Chiba Yûdai) comes from a long line of Japanese calligraphers. But when she visits his home, she sees a paper talisman with the exact writing as one she always carries with her. The words come from an obscure religious cult, a client of Moji’s father. After some investigation, they discover Minami’s birth father is somehow associated with the cult… and perhaps is why she never knew him. So she decides to secretly show up at his door to find out the truth. Will she find out about her missing history? Or is she just opening a can of 
worms?
One Summer Story is an extremely cute coming-of-age drama about a girl discovering her birth father with unexpected results. Its also about her new friend — and his unusual family — who helps her on her way.
Based on a manga, it also incorporates a non-existent, animated TV show within the story line. Lots of quirky but likeable characters and an unpredictable plot make it a pleasure to watch. And with much of it set at a beachside home or a swimming pool, it gives off a nice cool energy on a hot summer’s day.
The Black Phone opens this weekend; check your local listings; One Summer Story’s is playing at the Toronto Japanese Film Festival for its Canadian premiere on Sunday, June 26th at 7:00pm, at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Japanese women. Films reviewed: Wife of a Spy, Mio’s Cookbook, The Brightest Roof in the Universe
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto’s spring Film festival season continues. Toronto Jewish Film Festival finishes this weekend, with two great French films, Summer of 85 a gay mystery romance set in the 80s and directed by Francois Ozon; and The Specials, a crowd pleaser by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, best known for the hugely popular Intouchable. It’s about a makeshift social services centre in Paris for hard-to-handle kids with autism.
But this week, I’m talking about another TJFF, the Toronto Japanese Film Festival. This one is also digital, but each film plays for the duration of the festival, until June 27th. And as always, it’s deftly programmed, with movies ranging from samurai to Yakuza to family dramas, romance, comedies, action, anime, and even some movies adapted from manga.
This week, I’m looking at three new Japanese features told from a female point of view. There’s a cook trying to capture the flavours of her childhood, a high school girl who seeks answers on top of a roof, and a wife who can’t decide whether her husband is an adulterer… or a spy.
Wife of a Spy
Dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
It’s the 1940s in Kobe Japan where Satoku and and Yusaku are a happily married couple. Satoku (Aoi Yu) is a movie actress and Yusaku (Takahashi Issey) a rich businessman who owns an import-export corporation. Japan is at war, but they continue live a western-style life of peaceful luxury. But everything changes when Yusaku and their nephew Fumio return from a business trip in. Manchuria. a Japanese puppet state in Northeastern China. There they witnessed unspeakable atrocities and war crimes committed by the notorious Kwantung Army (aka Kantogun), an elite branch of the Japanese military. And they brought a young Japanese woman back with them.
Satoku sees only the young woman and knows nothing of the war crimes — is her husband cheating on her?. Meanwhile, a childhood friend named Taiji relocates to Kobe. She remembers him as a kind young man. But now he’s a member of the dreaded Kempeitai, the Japanese Gestapo. He criticizes her for wearing dresses instead of kimonos and for drinking foreign whiskey not Japanese. He’s also secretly in love with her. And he suspects Fumio 
and possibly even Yusaku, are traitors spreading Japanese war secrets to the enemy. Or is he just trying to break up their marriage?
But when she discovers the truth about the horrors of war, she confronts her husband — does he have proof? Eventually she has to decide whether to become a spy herself or turn in her husband to the police.
Wife of a Spy is great WWII thriller, full of jealousy, intrigue and numerous unexpected plot twists. Japan is not like Germany where filmmakers have produced hundreds or thousands of movies about their dark past. Rarely do you see Japanese films like this one. This movie is made for TV so everything is on a smaller scale with a more compact feel than a theatrical film, but under the direction of Kurosawa Kiyoshi and with its really good acting and script, (along with costumes, sets and music), it keeps the suspense building till the very end.
Great movie.
Mio’s Cookbook
Dir: Haruki Kadokawa
It’s 1801. Mio and Noe are two 12 year-old girls in Osaka. They vow to be best friends forever. One day they encounter a fortune teller who says Noe is destined for great success, while Mio will have to pass through dark clouds before she reaches blue skies. The same night a huge flood sweeps away both their houses. Mio is an orphan adopted by a woman, and Noe completely disappears. Fast forward ten years.
Now Mio (Matsumoto Honoka) lives in Edo (Tokyo) and works as a cook in a small restaurant. But her love of the sweeter, subtler flavours of Osaka that she’s used to are not popular in her customers in Edo who prefer stronger, saltier tastes. So after much experimentation and hard work she comes up with a perfect blending of the two cuisines. She creates the perfect chawan-mushi egg custard, and her fickle customers love it. Soon, there are lineups around the block. Word reaches Yoshiwara, the red light district, where a mysterious courtesan who never shows her face in public and is known only as Asahi (played by Nao), sends an emissary to bring one back for her to taste. Meanwhile two men are also interested in her cooking: an aristocrat (Kubozuka Yusuke) and a doctor who frequents both the restaurant and the Yoshiwara district. But evil forces — in the form of competing restaurant owners — are working against her. They steal her recipes, send bullies to scare away customers and even set fire to her workplace. Can a woman become a famous chef in Edo? Will Mio ever find her childhood 
friend? And will she find love in the confines of her restaurant?
Mio’s Cookbook is a lovely drama about friendship, cooking, class, religion, sex work, and the floating world of the pleasure district. It’s full of fascinating details about Japanese cuisine — each new dish she creates is displayed and labeled for you to see — and tons of period touches about life 200 years ago. It’s directed by Kadokawa Haruki, the notorious former movie producer, once heir to the Kadokawa publishing empire but who fell from grace in a cocaine scandal in the 1990s. A Japanese Spielberg, he knows how to craft a complex plot with many characters by pressing all the right buttons to keep the crowd wanting more. This is an enjoyable film that left me feeling… well, very hungry afterwards.
The Brightest Roof in the Universe
Dir: Fujii Michihito
Tsubame (Kiyohara Kaya) is a high school girl in a town somewhere in Japan. She has a crush on her next door neighbour Toru (Ito Kentaro) a banjo-playing dude who thinks of her more as a younger sister. She recently split up with her boyfriend after he posted cruel anonymous texts about her on everybody’s cel. And at home, her parents (her dad and step-mom) are preparing for a new baby. But will it take her place in the family? Tsubame has lots to worry about, which she does on the roof of a building where she takes Japanese calligraphy classes. Until one day she realizes she’s not alone up on that roof. There’s a tough-as-nails old lady up there, too, who rides around on a kids’ scooter.
This strange granny is outspoken and opinionated and makes Tsubame feel uncomfortable. There’s something about her she just doesn’t get. But eventually they become friend and confidants. Turns out Hoshi-ba (Momoi Kaori) — meaning granny from the stars — has special powers. She says she can fly and can solve almost any problem. In exchange for Hoshi-ba’s favours, Tsubame starts doing things for her — like finding her long-lost 
grandson who lives somewhere amidst all the rooftops in the town. Is Hoshi-ba real or imaginary? And can she fulfil Hoshi-ba’s wish?
The Brightest Roof in the Universe is a sweet and absorbing coming of age story that touches on family, friendship and love. It also deals with more obscure topics like ink brush painting, jellyfish and astronomy It’s slow paced but not boring, and told in a series of revelatory chapters, some of which are total surprises.
It’s also a sentimental tear-jerker, but in a nice way. I like this movie, too.
Wife of a Spy, The Brightest Roof in the Universe, and Mio’s Cookbook are all playing, now through June 27th at the Toronto Japanese Film Festival.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Investigative Journalists. Movies reviewed: The Journalist, The Viewing Booth, The Best is Yet to Come
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Is journalism still alive? We seem to have an endless supply of pundits with formulaic political viewpoints, but true investigative journalism is hard to find. But it’s still there – you just have to know where to look. So this week I’m talking about three new movies (two dramas and a doc) about journalists and the media. There’s a die-hard journalist in Tokyo looking for the truth; a cub reporter in Beijing looking for his first big story; and a documentary-maker in the US looking at how viewers interpret the news.
The Journalist (新聞記者)
Dir: Fujii Michihito (Based on the novel by Mochizuki Isoko)
Erika Yoshioka (Eun-kyung Shim) is a young reporter at Tôto, a medium-sized Tokyo newspaper. One day she receives an anonymous fax with a cartoon of a sheep drawn on the first page. Inside are government plans to open a medical researchlab in a backwater town. is it a prank? Evidence of a boondoggle? Or something more? She decides to investigate. But she has to be careful; her own father was a freelance journalist based in New York who ended up dead from suicide after revealing another storyl.
Meanwhile, in a different part of Tokyo, a young government bureaucrat named Takumi Sugihara (Tôri Matsuzaka) gets an unusual call from Kanzaki, his former boss from five years 
earlier. He wants to meet for a talk. Sugihara used to work for Gaimushô, Japan’s foreign service, but switched to his current job after Kanzaki took the fall for a scandal at the Beijing Embassy where they both worked. Sugihara now works for Naicho, the secretive intelligence unit that operates out of the PMO. Rumour has it Naicho is used to surveil and plot against opponents to the ruling political leaders. Kanzaki wants to tell him something, but they both end up getting drunk instead. And not long after, he jumps off a building. His death brings together the dogged journalist Erika and the loyal bureaucrat Sugihara both of whom want to find out exactly what happened. What was Kanzaki’s secret and why is it so dangerous? Is it related to the sheep cartoon Erika received? 
Who else knows? And what will happen to the two of them if the scandal reaches the papers?
The Journalist is a tense, captivating story of deep-state corruption and sinister plots. The action alternates between Erika’s bright and crowded newsroom and the cold empty halls of Naicho where Sugihara reports to an evil and powerful boss. Korean actress Shim Eun-kyung is perfect as Erika in her unwavering search for the truth – she totally deserves the Japanese Academy award she won for this performance. The Journalist is a terrific movie.
The Viewing Booth
Dir: Ra’anan Alexandrowicz
This documentary asks: can news viewers, like you and me, ever change our political views because of politically-charged videos we watch on sites like youtube? It follows a subject named Maya at an American university by filming her face has she watches a selection of 40 short news videos. The camera captures her comments and facial expressions, moment by moment, as she wavers between acceptance and rejection of what she’s watching, sorting them mentally according to whether or not they fit her outlook. She asks aloud: Is this footage real? Is it convincing? Is it biased? Does she believe it? And what does it mean?
She’s brought back six months later, this time viewing the same videos, right beside footage of herself from the first session. She observes herself observing videos (it gets super-meta here.) The videos in the doc are all from the occupied Palestinian territories and they range from innocuous to disturbing, showing settlers,
Israeli soldiers, and Palestinians. (She concentrates on one video where soldiers dressed in large military masks walk into a home in the middle of the night, wake up small children, ask each child their name, photograph each child’s face, then leaving without explanation.) Half the clips are from B’Tselem, a human rights group opposed to the occupation, and the other half were posted by various right-wing groups. The documentary tries to see whether exposure to opposing viewpoints can change a viewer’s mind or if it merely enforces the beliefs she already holds. Here’s the thing: it’s not a scientific study despite its clinical trappings; rather, The Viewing Booth is more of a meditation, the filmmaker’s personal reflection on the biases news viewers hold. Is it universally applicable or just about that single subject? I don’t know, but it is interesting – and unsettling – to watch.
The Best is Yet to Come (不止不休)
Dir: Wang Jing
It’s 2003. Han Dong (Bai Ke) is a would-be journalist in Beijing. Originally from northeastern China, he’s a high school drop-out who quit his steady job back home at a chemical factory to go for broke in the big city. But so far no luck. His girlfriend Xiaozhu (Miao Miao: Youth) who also worked at the factory lives in even worse conditions. But he keeps going to job fairs to try to get hired by a newspaper. And they keep rejecting him as unqualified, until… opportunity knocks when he visits a newspaper to pick up a minuscule 100 yuan paycheque for a short piece they published. He catches the attention of a veteran journo there takes him on as an intern, right beside college grads brandishing journalism degrees from prestigious schools like Bei Da. And he passes his first test, getting 
a scoop at the site of a coal mine disaster. But his next story could be a whopper.
He goes undercover taking a job at a sketchy medical clinic that pays cash for blood. No they’re not vampires. Rather they provide forged blood samples for applicants to jobs. Why? Because anyone who tests positive for Hepatitis B is categorically rejected. This effects maybe 100 million people for a disease that is not even contagious. It’s a crooked company that breaks the law. But is the law fair? Should he cover the story… or cover it up?
The Best is Yet to Come (based on a true story) shows how a self-taught, print journalist breaks into the big leagues despite all the odds against him. Its exciting plot keeps you questioning all the way through. This is Wang Jing’s first feature – he was assistant director to the great Jia Zhang-ke (Ash is Purest White, Touch of Sin) but with a very different style. It’s told in a straightforward chronological manner, no tricks or fancy camerawork. Great acting and story, The Best is Yet to Come gives an unusual look at both investigative journalism and a glimpse into real-life China – the grime and grit, the dark alleys, crowded tenements and poverty. And it leaves on a hopeful note: if you try hard and don’t give up, you can change the world.
The Best is Yet to Come played at #TIFF20, The Viewing Booth is showing at Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival on now through the weekend, and The Journalist is available for streaming at the Toronto Japanese Film Festival through October 21st.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Media. Films reviewed: Late Night, Fly Me to the Saitama
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Spring film festival season continues in Toronto. The Japanese film fest is showing great movies at the JCCC (Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre), and the ICFF (Italian Contemporary Film Fest) which started just last night is showing films in Toronto and across Canada.
This week I’m talking about two new comedies, one that closed Inside Out, and another that’s opening at Toronto Japanese Film Fest. There’s a talk show host in New York who might lose her job, and a suburban freedom fighter in Tokyo who might lose his life.
Late Night
Dir: NIsha Ganatra
Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) is a late night talk show host on Network TV. She’s known for her erudite interviews, highbrow topics and funny monologues. She sticks to the tried and true, steering clear of gossip, pop culture and social networks. She’s a highly respected host and the only woman on late night TV.
She’s also tired, boring and tanking in the ratings. So much so, the network chief gives her an ultimatum: get with times or we’ll replace you. An offensive fratboy standup is already being groomed to take her place. What can she do?
In walks Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling), fresh from a chemical plant in Pennsylvania. She has no experience as a writer, but happens to be in the right place at the right time, and is hired to add some spark to a moribund, all-male writers’ room. But she faces a wall of sexist, priveleged white guys, who resent her intrusion. This has been a bastion of male writers for so long they have even co-opted women’s washroom!
And their boss, Katherine – the show’s host – is a petty dictator, who never talks to her writers but demands long hours and absolute obedience. Only the newly-hired Molly is naïve enough to flout the rules. Can Molly fit into an all-male workplace? And can she change Katherine’s mindset enough to set theshow on a new course… before she gets gets fired or the show gets canned?
Late Night is a clever look at late-night TV. While not a slapstick comedy, it does have a enough character jokes, awkward situations and one-liners (some work, some don’t) which keep you smiling if not always rolling on the floor. It follows the dynamics of a cruel but insecure boss trying to change, and the newby who keeps getting herself in trouble.
It also follows the two main characters’ lovelifes. Katherine has a faithful but reclusive husband (John Lithgow). Molly is initially hit on by writers from the show: the womanizer Charlie (Hugh Dancy) and the snobbish Tom (Reid Scott) who both think a woman writer is there to date, but not to take seriously.
Emma Thompson is believable as the talk show host and Mindy Kaling (she’s also the movie’s writer) is fun as the small-town, fish out of water.
I liked this movie.
Fly me to the Saitama (翔んで埼玉)
Dir: Hideki Takeuchi
It’s present-day Tokyo (sort of). It’s actually a feudal version dressed in modern garb, patrolled by violent Robocop storm troopers dressed in clingy, white bodysuits who capture and expell any “outsiders” from beyond the city’s borders. The most reviled place of all is Saitama, a suburban prefecture just to the city’s north. It’s known as Dasai-tama, Urusai-tama, Mendokusai-tama, Ahokusai-tama (meaning out of fashion, inconvenient, noisy… and worse.) Your status is determined by your Urban Index Rating.
Momomi (Nikaido Fumi) is the Student Council President at 
the prestigious Hakuhodo Academy. He’s an arrogant snob who dresses like Little Lord Fauntleroy with a blonde pageboy haircut. He is the son of the deeply corrupt, hereditary governor of Metropolitan Tokyo and next in line to take the throne. And he is served by his mysterious butler Akutsu (Iseya Yusuke) who anticipates his every move.
But order is threatened by the arrival of an unknown wealthy aristocrat named Rei (Gackt). Rei spent many years in America and can distinguish the various neighbourhoods of Tokyo merely by sense of smell. And his urban rating is higher even than Momomi’s. Momomi is furious and wants to have him killed… until their first kiss. Momomi is swept away in his arms. But Rei has a secret…
He’s actually from Saitama! If the secret is revealed he will be humiliated, expelled from Tokyo, or maybe even killed. Can Momomi accept Rei’s true identity? And can Rei overthrow the powers that be and free the people of Saitama forever?
That’s a very quick and simple sketch of this movie, but it’s actually about so much more. Fly Me to the Saitama is an absolutely bizarre, over-the-top satire of urban culture, based on a gag-style manga from the 1980s. The characters all wear elaborate rococo costumes and multi-coloured, enormous hairstyles. Like in many girls comics (aka shojo manga) both of the main romantic characters are boys, in this one Momomi is played by a woman. And the whole movie is loaded with plays on words, and references to old Japan. Still, with a bit of suspension of disbelief, I think it’s totally understandable.
It’s directed by Takeuchi Hideki, who brought us Thermae Romae, about a Roman centurian who is magically transported through time from a Roman bath to a Japanese sento. This movie is also fantastical and bizarre, and will keep you shaking your head in bewildered wonder. Fly Me to the Saitama is already smash hit in Japan, one of the few local film successes so far this year, grossing over a billion yen. If you’re into Japanese pop culture, this movie is a must-see.
Late Night opens today in Toronto; check your local listings. Fly me to the Saitama is playing at the Toronto Japanese Film Festival.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Good genres. Films reviewed: Ishtar, Tokyo Vampire Hotel, Hereditary
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com.
As I frequently say, don’t confuse highbrow cinema with good movies, and genre films with bad movies. Good and bad exist in both worlds. This week I’m looking at three entertaining, genre movies: a comedy thriller, a horror movie and a horror/comedy. We’ve got lounge singers in a hotel in war-torn North Africa, a singles retreat in a hotel run by vampires, and a family living in a dollhouse-like home… that might be haunted.
Ishtar (1987)
Wri/Dir: Elaine May
Lyle Rogers (Warren Beatty) is a gullible rube from the sticks; while Chuck Clarke (Dustin Hoffman) is a fast-talking pickup artist from Queens. Together they’re Rogers and Clarke a musical duo of singer-songwriters in New York. They think they’re going to be the next Lennon and McCartney or Simon and Garfunkel, but they are missing one key element: talent! Needless to say, they’re going nowhere fast. Their savings are gone, and their girlfriends have left them, and their agent is far from helpful. But he does have a gig for them at a hotel in Morocco. Sounds good! So they fly, off via the remote (fictional) kingdom of Ishtar. 
But Ishtar is on the brink of revolution. And an ancient map that a local archaeologists has just found is the only spark needed to light that fire. Lyle and Chuck are clueless, of course, and just want to perform their act. But the hapless Americans are quickly drawn into this intrigue.
There’s a shifty American CIA agent (Charles Grodin) who convinces Chuck he can help their career; and a fiery revolutionary named Shirra (Isabelle Adjani) disguised as a young man who seduces Lyle to get him to help her cause. Will Rogers and Clarke split up? As fate 
would have it they end up in a camel caravan in the Sahara desert, pursued by militants, mercenaries, gun runners, nomads and US bombers, all convinced they have that crucial map.
When Ishtar came out in 1987 it was a collasal flop with many critics calling it the worst movie ever made. I disagree. I finally watched it and I think it’s a hoot. It’s funny and politically astute; when was the last mainstream comedy you saw with the CIA and US military as the bad guys? OK, its cultural impressions are rather obtuse, but it’s 
making fun of the American characters’ disguises not the locals. And it takes place before the “regime change” wars yet to come.
More than that, here are Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman — former icons — making fun of the whole generation of baby boomers, saying how did they all end up so uncool? Even their improvisational songs are bad-funny. If you’re yearning to see a forgotten piece of 80s culture, check out Ishtar.
Tokyo Vampire Hotel
Wri/Dir: Sion Sono
It’s 2022 in Tokyo, Japan, and something big is about to happen. Manami (Tomite Ami) can feel it. She’s about to turn 22 and is having strange thoughts. Like buzzing away at her hair until she looks like Eleven on Stranger Things. But when she witnesses a mass shooting inside a restaurant that kills everyone but her she really freaks. She barely escapes and owes her life to a mysterious woman named K (Kaho). That’s when Manami discovers the killings 
were committed by rival gangs searching for her. She is crucial to their plans, but she doesn’t know why.
Meanwhile, a major Tokyo hotel has invited singles to a special event – a dating weekend for coupling up. What the guests don’t know is the hotel is run by vampires. And they’re the main course. Add a rivalry between two vampire lineages, the Draculs and the Corvins, fighting for power; a Transylvania/Japan connection, and a Prime Minister who might destroy the world, 
and there you have it: a bloody, non-stop battle royale fought by rival vampires and hotel guests in a Tokyo hotel.
If you think that’s a lot of plot for one movie, you’re right. It’s actually a condensed version of a TV series, edited to fit into a single film. There are love affairs, Romanian castles, hidden rivers, a female killer dressed in pink, and sinister royal matriarchs, one of whom runs a secret world of blood orgies involving thousands of slaves… hidden inside her vagina! Tokyo Vampire Hotel isn’t for everyone, but I found it shocking, disgusting, sexy and hilarious.
Director Sion Sono is one of my favourite Japanese directors, a master schlockmeister unmatched when it comes to rivers of blood. Every frame uses saturated colours, and lightning-fast editing.
He treats blood as an art form, spilling it everywhere in a grotesquely beautiful way.
Heriditary
Wri/Dir: Ari Aster
Annie and Steve (Toni Collette and Gabriel Byrne) are a happy middle aged couple with two kids. Peter (Alex Wolff) is a pothead in high school crushing on a girl from class. Charlie (MIllly Shapiro) is younger and a bit tetched in the head. She draws strange pictures and puts scraps of wood and metal together to make little dolls. She must have got that from her 
mom, an artist, who builds intricate doll houses that recreate important aspects of her own family’s lives. They live in a beautiful if isolated wooden home filled with her doll houses.
But ever since Annie’s own mother died, strange things keep happening in her house. Things like doors opening by themselves, and nonsense words found scrawled on walls. Charlie wanders off when she should be at home, Peter awakens 
from hideous nightmares, and mom finds herself sleepwalking holding a knife in a fugue state. What can it all mean? But when decapitated birds lead to human deaths, Annie feels she has to stop this. But what is she fighting aganst? And is she too late?
Hereditary is a chilling thriller/horror, beautifully made. You’re never quite sure if your watching Peter’s pot-fueled nightmares, Annie’s sleepwalking visions, life inside her intricate dollhouse dioramas, or 
real life. And by “real life” I mean supernatural goings on.
Scene changes are so skillfully done, it shifts seamlessly through these conflicting realities. This is director Ari Aster’s first feature but the acting, art direction and camera work turns a conventional story into a remarkable film.
Great movie.
Hereditary opens today in Toronto; Ishtar is at TIFF Cinematheque as part of Funny Girl: The Films of Elaine May; and Tokyo Vampire Club is playing at Toronto’s Japanese Film Festival.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Wonderful Women. Films reviewed: Wonder Woman, Beatriz at Dinner
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
The Italian Contemporary Film Fest and Toronto’s Japanese Film Festival are on now showing showing wonderful movies from those two countries. And two other, not as well known festivals are also in this weekend. Breakthroughs Film Festival at the Royal Cinema features short films by emerging female directors. And TQFF, Toronto Queer Film Festival shows alternative movies from around the world, that reflect a queer aesthetic without corporate sponsorship. The films are showing at the Steelworkers Union Hall on Cecil Street.
The week I’m looking at films about wonderful women. There’s a woman with superhuman strength from a tropical island, and a woman with healing powers from southern California.
Wonder Woman
Dir: Patty Jenkins
Diana (Gal Gadot) is an Amazonian who lives on a lush, green island somewhere in the Aegean sea. It’s an all-female society, run in the manner of ancient Greece. They practice archery, horseback riding, spear chucking and woman-on-woman combat. They train for battle, but believe in peace. They will fight again only if the god Ares comes to power. Diana is the strongest of all, and is itching to fight. Paradise is disturbed by the arrival of a biplane, piloted by an American pursued by German soldiers. The Amazonians manage to fight off the invaders but Diana decides it’s time to leave the island. She enlists the American soldier, Steve (Chris Pine) to guide her to the warfront (it’s WWI). Once there, she will fulfil her sacred duty of saving humanity by slaying the war god. And she brings with her special weapons: a rope of truth, a god-killer sword, a shield, and shiny forearm bracelets.
Diana speaks and reads thousands of languages and has super-human strength, but Steve is the first man she’s ever met. Men, she says, are necessary for procreation but not for carnal pleasure. He is dumbfounded by this strange princess but promises to lead her to the battlefront.
In London, he pulls together a ragtag gang of multinational mercenaries: Charlie, a Scot (Ewen Bremner), Samir, a French Algerian (Saïd Taghmaoui), and a Blackfoot First Nations known as The Chief (Eugene Brave Rock). On the road to Belgium she learns about their enemy: Dr Poison a diabolical genius creating chemical weapons, and Ludendorff a war-loving general who huffs methamphetamines for super strength. Can Diana reach the front lines, defeat Ares, and save humanity?
Wonder Woman is a good movie – I liked it. Superhero movies are always a bit corny, but somehow setting it in the 1910s makes it easier to swallow. Diana (she’s never called Wonder Woman in the movie) is a Supeman-type character, both stronger and morally superior to ordinary people. She rejects all acts of selfishness, cannot tell a lie, and is shocked by prejudice, cruelty and callousness. She wants to save the world, one person at a time. This is a war movie that is against war. It’s very long — close to three hours — but never boring. It’s actually four complete movies: Life in Amazonia, Adjusting to London, War in the Trenches, and the Final Showdown. Gadot is great as Diana with Pine good as her male sidekick. It’s absorbing, fun and mainly forgettable, but I’d gladly see the next one in the series.
Beatriz at Dinner
Dir: Miguel Arteta
Beatriz (Salma Hayak) is a healer, a counsellor and nutritionist in southern California. She lives in a small apartment with her pet goats and buddhist paraphernalia. By day, she works in a cancer centre, helping patients cope with their illness. She puts her heart into everything she 
does.
She once helped a teenaged girl recover, and in gratitude the girl’s very rich parents still hire her for massages and counselling at their mansion. Cathy (Connie Britton) is especially tense that day. She and her husband are preparing a business dinner to close a major real estate deal with a property mogul. But when Beatriz’s car won’t start, Cathie invites her to stay for dinner – since she’s like family.
Beatriz soon realizes that she doesn’t fit in with this sycophantic crowd. She’s a new-age, vegan Mother Teresa, surrounded by filthy-rich hunters of endangered species. The centre of attention is Doug Strutt (John Lithgow), a famous real estate billionaire known for his golf courses and shopping malls. He is rude, arrogant and condescending… and somehow familiar to Beatriz. Did she meet him in the past? Strutt first treats Beatriz as a 
servant not a guest, because she’s a Latina, and asks where she’s “really” from and whether she’s “legal”. Already depressed (due to a recent death) and fortified by many glasses of wine, Beatriz fights back. What is he doing to the environment? And why is he kicking poor people out of their homes? He is shocked but amused, since he is usually surrounded by ass-kissers. But the conflict intensifies to the embarrassment of both her hosts and Beatriz herself, eventually heading toward an explosive encounter.
Beatriz at Dinner is a wonderful and deeply moving film. It is described as the first Trump movie. Shot last year, it’s not about Trump as President but rather Trump as an arrogant, Mexico-hating, climate-denying billionaire. Hayek turns away from her usual role as sexy leading lady to a passionate, but ordinary-looking, everywoman. And John Lithgow is perfect as the Trump-like Strutt. This is a short movie, less than 90 minutes long, but it brought me to tears.
I recommend this movie.
Wonder Woman is now playing and Beatriz at Dinner opens today in Torontol; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
June 8, 2012. Bodies. Movies Reviewed: Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present, Harakiri: Death of a Samurai, Guilty of Romance
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies, for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, genre and mainstream movies, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
Does art bore you? Do foreign movies with subtitles seem dull? Well, you’re in for a shock. Three shocks actually, that should rid you of that notion. This week I’m looking at three movies about people who use and abuse their bodies. One’s a Japanese drama about men who stick sharp objects into their stomachs in the name of honour; another is a Japanese dramatic thriller about two women who sell their bodies, but only for the thrill of it; and one is an American documentary about a woman who throws her naked body, full-force, at immobile naked men – but purely for artistic reasons.
To start with, here’s an art movie — well, a movie about art — that definitely won’t put you to sleep.
Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present
Dir: Matthew Akers
Marina Abramovic is a beautiful artist in her 60’s, born in Belgrade to parents who were hardcore Communists who fought in the resistance in WWII. They were cold, militaristic and authoritarian, so she chooses to go in the opposite direction with her art. She becomes a pioneer in radical performance art, beginning in the 1970’s. She’s famous for using her own body — usually naked — as the medium of her art.
She cuts herself, burns herself, starves herself, hurts herself, throws herself against immutable objects, and whips herself. But she brings the military discipline with which she was raised to sustain these extended and painful performances.
Then she meets another artist in the Netherlands who does similar things, and they fall madly in love. Now she has a performance partner — Ulay — and a life partner. They slap 
each others faces, over and over, throw themselves body first into one another… things like that. And always naked, of course.
But all things end, and when they break up, she is devastated, both emotionally and artistically. She had always handled the artistic side but not the “business” side of art…
Flash-forward to the present. She has transformed herself into a hugely successful art superstar – mow as much a theatrical performer as an ideological artist — and the Museum of Modern Art decides to do a retrospective. But she’s in her sixties, so she gathers a whole gang of young artists with nice bodies in a performance art bootcamp and meditation lodge! They’re going to re-perform her old pieces using their new bodies.
And Marina herself sets up a (now famous) performance at MoMA that consists of her sitting in a chair in a huge, empty white hall for long periods of time in a chair, facing another chair. The viewers sit across from her, one by one, and look deeply into her eyes — no speaking, no moving, no eating… just staring, completely still. It becomes more and more popular, until it reaches the point where people are camped out on the sidewalk overnight, coming into New York City from distant places. Marina as superstar. The movie follows her past (using period footage and photos), her ascent to celebrity-hood, her amazing performance, and her behind-the- scenes look at constructing this work. It’s equal parts art, fame, emotion and philosophy… with just a bit of hucksterism.
If you’ve never seen a movie about art (or if fine art intimidates you), this is a good one to start with — it’s exciting, sexy, entertaining, funny, shocking and totally accessible. Great movie!
Harakiri: Death of a Samurai
Dir: Takashi Miike
Did you know that Samurai were basically bureaucrats and tax collectors not fighters? Around 1600 after the Battle of Sekigahara unified the country under the Tokugawa military government, the samurai who had fought on the losing sides often found themselves as Ronin – samurai without a master. That left them penniless, aimless, and with a great loss in status.
So this movie’s about a poor ronin named Hanshiro 
who shows up at the House of Yii saying he wants to commit harakiri (ritual suicide). That’s where a samurai takes his smaller sword and slices up his belly until he dies… at which point, another samurai chops off his head… nice.
But what does the Daimyo’s rep say? “Oh no, not again…!” You see, a younger ronin named Motome had tried the same thing not long before. He was a scammer who just wanted a few coins as a payoff for not bloodying up their nice courtyard. But they called his bluff – go ahead and kill yourself. But he didn’t have the short sword – he pawned it and replaced it with a bamboo replica. But the cruel samurai says, 
doesn’t matter – and there’s a long painful scene where they force this young ronin to go through with this, to pierce his belly with a piece of broken wood! …ouch!
Anyway, back to the present, they tell this story and tell the older ronin he can go home, no problem. But here the plot turns…. Turns out he’s that younger ronin’s father in law, and he came to prove a point: that the samurai code, the vaunted code of warriors, that bastion of dignity and honour, is just a load of crap.
The movie culminates in a scene that wouldn’t be out of place in a Zatoichi (the blind swordsman) pic!
My description can’t do justice to this movie (and I don’t want to give it all away), but it’s a dark, tense drama and a damning challenge to authority and corruption, showing how false and hollow the whole thing is. It’s directed by Takashi Miike, who is known for his violence and excess, but is amazingly restrained here, with an almost Shakespearean take on a 17th century Japanese samurai drama.
Guilty of Romance
Dir: Sion Sono
(Restricted to age 18+)
Tokyo police detectives find a bloody scene in a love hotel, and want to uncover this mystery. But what a mystery it is!
It starts with a new bride who has a dictatorial husband. She’s a sexually naïve, traditional Japanese housewife who wears a kimono, with her hair pulled back, bows to her lover, and when he leaves for work in the morning (he’s a novelist) she dutifully turns his slippers around so they’ll be ready for him when he comes home.
Then one day she decides to take a job in a grocery 
store dressed in a little hat and a uniform offering sausage samples on toothpicks to passing shoppers. Soon, a woman claiming to be a modelling agent convinces her to pose for photos. This soon turns to nude photos, then to hardcore porn on video.
She is shaken by the experience, but also sexually awakened. She starts picking up guys she meets in central Shibuya, and gradually drifts into the nearby love hotel district (Maruyama). There she meets a crazed streetwalker who takes her under her wing, and tells her about a mythical, Kafkaesque “castle” where all things will be made clear to her.
So she becomes almost a disciple to this mysterious fiery-eyed and raven haired woman who tells her never, ever to have sex for free… unless she is with the one who loves her. But she soon finds out, this scary streetwalker is, like her, living a double life! She’s actually a well-known university professor who lectures to packed halls by day, but trolls the alleys in disguise by night.
But there’s still further deceit in their secret lives. Guilty of Romance is a violent, sexually explicit exploitation drama, based on a true story.
The director, Sion Sono, is amazing in that he takes very recent pulp news stories, and turns them into way-over-the-top funny, gory, emotionally fraught, and semi-pornographic sexual movies. I’ve seen three of his recent movies, and they’re all amazing. Not for the faint of heart, but if you like female-centred shock movies, with terrific pot-boiler stories and super creepy characters (like the grandmother who speaks ultra politely but drips venom with every phrase), this is the movie for you.
Guilty of Romance plays tonight, and Harakiri on Sunday – with a live Taiko performance — both as part of the Toronto Japanese Film Festival (which runs until the 20th at the JCCC); and Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present opens next week – check your local listings. The CFC World Short Film Festival is on right now through Sunday, and NXNE, Toronto’s enormous music, film, and digital festival, begins on the 13th, next Thursday.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM, with podcasts and complete reviews available on my web site CulturalMining. com.
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