Tag: parents and children

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The Prayer
(Gan Ho-Joong,
간호중)

Director – Min Kyu-dong – 2020 – South Korea – Cert. 12a – 108m

*****

Just how capable are caregiver androids of looking after their terminally ill patients? – thought-provoking science fiction from the London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF), on now

In a vast, multi-storey building complex, end of life patients are attended by Caregivers, lifelike female androids programmed to perform all the necessary tasks of palliative care, their faces modelled after their purchaser. Manufactured by the German TRS Corporation, they come in a variety of models, including an entry-level type with only basic functions and a more advanced models which can cope better with patients’ needs.

One patient is surrounded by Christian friends of his wife loudly singing praise and worship songs, to the annoyance of those living in nearby units. Adherents of the Christian religion play quite a significant part in the narrative, with nun Sister Sabina (Ye Soo-jung) going round putting stickers wherever she can in these complexes inviting people to phone her if they want to pray.

They might well want to take up her offer. A lot of the patients’ relatives / carers could do with some sort of assistance. Mrs. Choi (Yum Hye-ran from Default, Choi Kook-hee, 2018; Memories Of Murder, Bong Joon Ho, 2003) has sold the family home to pay for a Caregiver (also Yum Hye-ran) for her dementia-stricken husband (Yoon Kyung-ho from Okja, Bong Joon Ho, 2017).… Read the rest

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Japan 2021
and Yasujiro Ozu

Full article: All The Anime.

So, Scotland Loves Anime is over (save a few stragglers at the Film House) and you’re wondering where you can see more Japanese movies. Today, the BFI finally kicks off its major Japan season originally scheduled for 2020 at London’s BFI Southbank. Originally intended to coincide with the Tokyo Olympics, the programmers rejigged the programme and put parts of it out online from May to September 2020 via the excellent BFI Player platform while Sight & Sound’s wonderful anime special was out on the shelves for around three months thanks to lockdown.

Alongside the BFI’s online coup of numerous Kurosawa movies including Seven Samurai (1954), reissued as a brand new print in UK cinemas from 29th October along with prints of Throne of Blood (1957) and Yojimbo (1961), comes a similar quantity of Yasujiro Ozu movies, a rare chance to get an overview of one of Japan’s most popular domestic talents. Ozu (1903-1963) is best known for Tokyo Story (1953, pictured)… [Read more]

I review the BFI’s Japan 2021 season and the films of Yasujiro Ozu for All The Anime.

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Dark Water
(Honogurai
Mizu
No Soko Kara,
仄暗い水の底から)

Director – Hideo Nakata – 2002 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 101m

*****

Plays in the BFI Japan 2021 season October / November at BFI Southbank. Also, currently streaming on BFI Player as part of the BFI Japan 2021 programme. Currently available to view on Amazon Prime, BFI Player and Shudder.

Review originally published in Funimation UK to coincide with the UK Dual Format Blu-ray/DVD release date 14/10/2016.

Jeremy Clarke on Hideo Nakata’s urban ghost story.

At the centre of Hideo Nakata’s film Dark Water (2002) is the powerful bond that exists between a mother and her child. Yoshimi Matsubara (Hitomi Kuroki) is in the middle of divorce proceedings and while all the financial arrangements have been agreed, the question of who gets custody of the couple’s daughter has yet to be settled. Yoshimi is assured that in cases where the child is less than six years old, the mother tends to get custody. However, her former husband is attempting to discredit her to prevent this happening.

This is all very stressful to Yoshimi. For the time being however she and her almost six year old daughter Iku (Rio Kanno) need to find a place to live.… Read the rest

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Still The Water
(Futatsume
No Mado,
2つ目の窓)

Director – Naomi Kawase – 2014 – Japan / France – Cert. 15 – 119m

*****

Two childhood sweethearts living on an island beset by storms must come to terms with the mortality and fallibility of their mothers – on BFI Player (rental) and MUBI.

The ocean roars and then, just as suddenly, is quiet. The wind howls through the trees, then sunlight is glimpsed through tranquil branches. Welcome to the sleepy yet storm-battered island of Amami Oshima, part of the Southern Japanese Archipelago, a place of paradox and contradiction seen through the eyes of two teenaged friends and their families.

Kyoko (Jun Yoshinaga aka Junko Abe – Samurai Marathon, Bernard Rose, 2019) loves swimming in the sea. Her friend Kaito (Nijiro Murakami – Isle Of Dogs, Wes Anderson, 2018, Destruction Babies, Tetsuya Mariko, 2016) is less keen – he’d rather be in the safety of a swimming pool. She uses him and his bicycle to get around the island if and when he’s nearby. She is rather keen on him and would happily have sex. He can’t explain why, but is less enthusiastic about the idea.

Once we move on to their parents, there are fascinating observations regarding motherhood – especially in the light of adoption / unwanted pregnancy outing True Mothers (Naomi Kawase, 2020) – and, to a lesser extent, fatherhood.… Read the rest

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Love Exposure
(Ai No Mukidashi, 愛のむきだし)

Director – Sion Sono – 2008 – Japan – Cert. 18 – 237m

*****

Originally published in Third Way to coincide with the UK DVD release date 11/01/2010.

Currently streaming on BFI Player as part of the Cult Japan section together with a much wider selection of Japanese movies.

Blu-ray on sale for a bargain £10 in Arrow Video’s sale.

There are very good reasons why this has an 18 certificate in the UK; younger readers should probably stop reading this review NOW!

A four hour marathon which races past the viewer at breakneck speed covering father-son relationships, Catholicism, sin, teen gangs, martial arts stunts, upskirt photography, violence, swordplay, castration, porno movie production, religious cults and more will sound to many like a film to avoid at all costs. Viewing, however, reveals a must see religious movie. (And many other things too – compelling comedy action drama, for instance.)

A Tokyo family of devout Catholics is emotionally ripped apart when the young mother dies, leaving teenage son Yu (Takahiro Nijishima) with instructions that the Girl Of His Dreams will appear to him as the Virgin Mary. Husband/father Tetsu (Atsuro Watabe) compensates for his loss by entering the priesthood and forcing the boy to attend confession regularly.… Read the rest

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The Mourning Forest
(Mogari
No Mori,
殯の森)

Director – Naomi Kawase – 2017 – Japan – Cert. 12 – 97m

****

Currently on BFI Player as part of 21st Century Japan.

Wind. Trees. Tall grass. A road barely discernible but for the occasional top of a hedge. A fluttering, white banner of a funeral procession moves imperceptibly across the landscape, a futile ritual for an unknown person.

A room’s corner between two windows. Beyond them: wind and trees. Against the corner leans the sleeping Mr Shigeki (Shigeki Uda). The boss of this old people’s home Wakako (Makiko Watanabe) is showing new care worker Machiko (Machiko Ono) the ropes. “There are no rules here”, she tells her. Machiko is in emotional free-fall. At home, a candle beside a photograph of a young boy. Berated by her husband for letting go of her child’s hand, Machiko has never got over the incident.

Kawase is a master of understatement… [Read the rest]

Currently on BFI Player as part of 21st Century Japan.

Full review at All The Anime.

Trailer:

2020

Monday, August 24th: MUBI

2017

August: Eureka! Video released the film on BD/DVD

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Moving On
(Nam-mae-wui
Yeo-reum-bam,
남매의 여름밤)

Director – Yoon Dan-bi – 2019 – South Korea – Cert. 15 – 105m

***1/2

A father takes his teenage daughter and her younger brother to stay with their ageing grandfather for the Summer – plays on MUBI as part of their New South Korean Cinema season

It’s the Summer, so dad (Yang Heung-joo) takes his two kids, teenage daughter Okju (Choi Jun-un) and smaller son Dongju (Park Seung-jun) off to stay with Grandpa (Kim Sang-dong). Moving location is no problem work-wise since he makes a living selling tennis shoes out of his small van on the street. It’s a precarious existence – at one point, he asks a man who runs a fabric shop whether he makes good money in that trade. And when Okju tries to sell some herself, she comes up against a buyer who has realised that the shoes are knock-offs.

There’s quite a bit of sibling rivalry – immediately on moving in, Okju refguses to let Dongju sleep in the room she has nabbed for herself after setting up her mosquito net. But as their aunt Mijung (Park Hyun-young) is later heard to remark, although the pair argue they actually get on with each other quite well.… Read the rest

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Copilot
(Die Frau
Des Piloten)

Director – Anne Zohra Berrached – 2021 – Germany, France – Cert. 15 – 118m

*****

The romantic and sometimes not-so romantic life of a woman whose husband will take part in an act that will shake the world – out in cinemas on Friday, September 10th, advance screening with director Q&A at Genesis Cinema, Mile End at 6.10pm on Wednesday September 8th

“Without you, I wouldn’t have the strength to follow my path.”

Asli (Canan Kir) sees Saeed (Roger Azar) for the first time in Germany when she is on a wild fairground ride with her friend Juia (Ceci Chuh). She meets him again at a student party. They fool around on the beach and in the sea.

1st Year. Two students in Germany. She is from Turkey and studying science. He is from the Lebanon and studying dentistry, a subject his parents pushed him into – he’d rather be a pilot. He hangs up on his mother when she berates him about this – he’d been hoping to introduce her to Amli, now his girlfriend. She doesn’t even know how to talk to her mother about the fact she’s dating an Arab, never mind the fact that they are living together.… Read the rest

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Herself

Director – Phyllida Lloyd – 2020 – UK/Ireland – Cert. 15 – 97m

****

A woman leaves her abusive and violent husband and builds a new home for herself and her two young daughters – in UK cinemas from Friday, September 10th

Things come to a head in the marriage of Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson) and Sandra (Clare Dunne, also co-screenwriter) when he violently assaults her and stamps on her hand, an incident witnessed by their younger daughter Molly (Molly McCann). Sandra has trained her kids well for such a situation and the eldest Emma (Ruby Rose O’Hara) knows what to do, rushing to the local shopkeeper with a lunch box inside the lid of which is the family address to give to the Garda.

Like her mother before her, Sandra works as a cleaner to retired and physically disabled local doctor Peggy O’Toole (Harriet Walter). To make ends meet, Sandra also works in a local pub as a barmaid alongside Amy (Ericka Roe) who lives in a nearby squat. After separating from Gary, she and he have joint custody of the kids while the council put her and her kids up in temporary accommodation in a hotel room.

As it’s four years on the housing list to get a home, Sandra investigates other alternatives and, surreptitiously using Peggy’s internet, discovers that she could build a house for only slightly more than a year’s rent to the council.… Read the rest

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Herself

A house of her own

Herself
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Certificate 15, 97 minutes
Released 10 September

Herself has a brutal opening in which Sandra (Clare Dunne), a mother of two girls in Dublin, is physically assaulted by her husband Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson), an incident witnessed by her youngest daughter, Molly (Molly McCann), while her eldest, Emma (Ruby Rose O’Hara), races across the estate to the local shop to deliver a pre-written emergency message.

From here, it becomes a tale about a single mum’s struggle to find a decent home for her and her kids in the face of a social welfare system that can’t cope with either the level of need or any innovation through which people try to legitimately help themselves… [Read more]

Full review published in Reform.

See my alternative review of the film here.

Trailer: