diver Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – Brian Duffield – 2026 – US – Cert. 15 – 106m

The abusive father drama (about half an hour) ***

The whale scenes (most of the film) *****

A man’s memories of his emotionally abusive father help him to survive when he is swallowed by a whale – out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 16th

This is very much a film of two elements. On the one hand, it’s about a bereaved man coming to terms with his memories of his recently deceased, abusive father. On the other hand, it is the spectacle, indeed, the experience, of a man being swallowed by a sperm whale. The whole thing, based on a novel by Daniel Krauss, is set in a coastal town and, mostly, in the nearby ocean.

In the opening 10 minutes, Mitt Gardiner (Josh Brolin from Dune & sequels, 2026, 2024, 2021, Sicario, 2015, all Denis Villeneuve; No Country for Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007), an experienced diver losing his fight against a rare cancer named mesothelioma, steps off the side of a boat into the ocean and is never seen again. (Except in flashback.) Before jumping into the water, he seals a number of letters and puts them in a box on the deck.… Read the rest

Inu-Oh
(Inu-Oh,
犬王)

Director – Masaaki Yuasa – 2021 – Japan – Cert. – 98m

***1/2

In fourteenth century Japan, a blind musician and a deformed, masked dancer shake up the culturally staid world of Noh theatre by forming a hugely popular rock band – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, September 28th

You never quite know what you’re going to get with an animated feature by Masaaki Yuasa (Ride Your Wave,2019; Lu Over the Wall, 2017; Mind Game, 2004) as he has a tendency to break with tradition. Here, he takes on periods of Japanese history but rather than go with power struggles as to who rules Japan, he focuses on two outcasts, an orphaned musician and a deformed dancer, who join together to form a rock band with an emphasis on theatrical showmanship to upend the artistic conventions of the day and become an overnight sensation until the ascendant ruler, determined to control the historical narrative, has the musician killed, and the dancer emasculated, forbidden to perform anything but state-approved material, and that only in the Imperial court.

It’s a triptych, one long story split into three sections. In the first section, after a prologue detailing the decisive Battle of Dan-No-Ura towards the end of the twelfth century, in which the Heiji clan were defeated by the Genji and the formers warriors threw themselves into the sea and perished, two centuries later in the period of the Northern and Southern Courts, Northern would be Kyoto-based, shogunate emperor Ashitaka decides that the power to rule demands he acquire three sacred treasures, one of which is a sword buried in the lake at Dan-No-Ura.… Read the rest