Vancouver International Film Festival 2008

Japan

Still Walking

Review by gloria wong

The latest from one of the world's great humanist filmmakers, Japan's Kore-eda Hirokazu (Nobody Knows) is, like most of the director's body of work, a finely crafted small-scaled drama centred around grief and loss. The film captures 24 hours in the life of the Yokoyama family as they reunite on the 15th anniversary of the death of eldest son Junpei (who died saving a young boy from drowning). Before I completely turn you away from the film, Still Walking is an often funny, startlingly honest film that happens to be about a family suspended in grief.

Kyohei is a retired doctor who regrets not having a son who followed in his footsteps. Toshiko busies herself with food preparation and light conversation in an attempt to hide the intense anger fueling her grief. Only daughter Chinami seems a bit flakey at first but she ultimately proves to be the most well-adjusted and observant member of her family. Then there's remaining son Ryota, a secretly failing art restorer whose recent marriage to a widowed single mother seems to have disappointed his parents even further.

Nothing much happens in Still Walking but its moments add up to a tremendously satisfying whole. It might be the most realistic portrayal of adult familial relationships I've ever seem on film. Filled with warmth without sentimentality and truth without sanctimony, Still Walking is another nearly perfect drama to add to Kore-eda's impressive filmography.

Still Walking
Kore-eda Hirokazu | Japan | 2008 | 114min

Japan

Lucky 7

Review by Cameron Maitland

When a director takes on the task of orchestrating and achieving a smooth anthology film, they tend to be setting themselves up for failure with a final product too disparate and chunky to enjoy. With her collaboration Lucky 7, Singaporean filmmaker Sun Koh hopes that the surrealist concept of the exquisite corpse can change negative perceptions of the anthology film.

Invented by the surrealists, the exquisite corpse is a collaborative piece rotated amongst creators wherein the next creator can only see the very end of the piece made before them. In this case Koh allowed each director to only see the last minute of the 10-12 minute segment produced before them but made the demand that the same actor, the undeniably flexible and talented Sunny Pang, appear in each segment.

In the end we get a film that has seven segments ranging from intimate dramatic pieces about love and dying to bombastic animations about pedophilia. Each director brings their own take and style and no two sections are too similar, which definitely makes the entire experience fast-paced.

Unfortunately, too many of the pieces are weak and the whole collapses under the stress. More than half juvenilely fumble with overly provocative portrayals of sex, sadomasochism, violence and gender issues. While it’s laudable to bring up such issues in a society like Singapore, the execution leaves much to be desired. The few pieces that do work are overwhelmed or mocked by the failures of the segments around them and their clear lack of bother to create any links or cohesion between segments. Worse yet, the filmmakers who try to play homage to surrealist film create bigger trainwrecks that would seem more at home in a first year film class than alongside great short pieces.

In the grand scheme of anthologies, Lucky 7 falls prey to the same problems as many of its anthology predecessors. Though there are glimmers of hope in some of the segments, but in the end you wish they’d just have existed as a series of shorts rather than a collected whole.

Lucky 7
Sun Koh et al | Singapore | 2008 | 82min

Sun. Sept. 28 | 7:15pm | Vancity Theatre
Mon. Sept. 29 | 3:45pm | Vancity Theatre

Japan

German + Rain

Review by Cameron Maitland

When you go into a film from another culture and another country, there’s nothing more disheartening than the frequency with which you find cookie cutter Hollywood films can come from anywhere. Thankfully there are still films like Yokohama Satoko’s German + Rain that are so unique that they seem almost from another world, let alone another country.

While the plot is too faceted to summarize, the general action follows anti-social 16-year-old Yoshiko and her attempts to make a life for herself when the rest of the world abandons her. What could have been a heart-warming tale is turned on its head when the put-upon Yoshiko ends up being more dark hearted, bilious and strange than any of the roadblocks put in her way. Yoshiko is a social misfit in an eccentrically violent and surreal way, her life a sort of Lynchian Welcome to the Dollhouse and the rest of the world, like the audience can’t help but sit by and watch as she tears around like a force of nature.

If that cinematic comparison seems hard to comprehend, don’t worry, it definitely is. Though the film will have you constantly engaged, it will just as frequently have you scratching your head. It’s hard to know when to laugh and when to cringe but, when you know, you definitely feel it and that’s where most of the fun of the piece lays.

German + Rain is bound to divide audiences with its multitudinous interpretations and wild plot but it is definitely a breath of fresh air from a unique and interesting director.

Germain + Rain
Yokohama Satoko | Japan | 2007 | 71min

Sun. Sept. 28 | 9:45pm | Vancity Theatre
Mon. Sept. 29 | 1:15pm | Vancity Theatre

Japan

The Witch of the West Is Dead

Review by gloria wong

The latest from veteran Japanese filmmaker Nagasaki Shunichi, an adaptation of a popular novel by Nashiki Kaho, tells the story of Mai, a young girl who refuses to go to school. Distressed but sympathetic, Mai's mother sends her to stay with grandmother's house until she feels better about school. Grandma (Sachi Parker) calls herself "The Witch of the West" (she's originally from England) and immediately begins teaching Mai about the small wonders of farm living in her idyllic country house.

On the surface, there isn't anything terribly wrong with The Witch of the West Is Dead. Unfortunately, it's just not very engaging or original. Mai is a bit bratty but predictably opens up to her saintly grandmother. There is an inevitable argument and even more predictable resolution. It's really too bad. A film about witches and the small moments that make family members love each other should sparkle; instead, The Witch of the West Is Dead feels really dull.

The Witch of the West Is Dead
Nagasaki Shunichi | Japan | 2007 | 115min

Sun. Sept. 28 | 6:20pm | Empire Granville Theatre 4
Thur. Oct. 2 | 2:30pm | Empire Granville Theatre 3

Japan

God's Puzzle

Review by Chris Walts

I’m going to try something a little different with my review of God’s Puzzle: I simply want to tell you to go see it - now. Talking about the plot in any sort of detail would be taking away from the sheer joy of having it unravel in front of you but if you still need incentive to go see it read on.

God’s Puzzle is an adrenaline-fueled, genre-bending film directed by Miike Takashi. Its narrative structure, about as consistent as the laws of physics on a quantum level, brilliantly skips from twin brother slap stick comedy, to effects-heavy documentary on advanced particle physics, to classic drama, to James Bond action flick, to absurdist comedy - all woven around several coming of age stories. To put it more succinctly, it’s the story of a wannabe rock star sushi chief who pretends to be his twin brother in his graduate level physics course and winds up befriending a lonely girl genius who wants to create a new universe, which will likely lead to the destruction of life as we know it. More amazingly, Miike also manages to provide several critiques and observations about the highly technological world we live in, and makes one question whether humanity’s never-ending search for ultimate, unifying answers is a worthwhile quest.

I don’t think I am going out on much of a limb here when I say this is going to be my favourite film of the festival. I sincerely hope this film gets wider distribution and comes out on DVD so I can add it to my film collection. Once again, go see it now.

God's Puzzle
Miike Takashi | Japan | 2008 | 134min

Thur. Sept. 25 | 10:00pm | Empire Granville Theatre 7
Fri. Sept. 26 | 2:30pm | Empire Granville Theatre 3

Japan

What the Heart Craves

Review by gloria wong

Three drunken people are having a few more rounds together after a wedding they’ve all attended when an innocuous party trick leads them to (accidentally) swapping house keys. The makings of great bedroom farce, right? Well, no. This would be What the Heart Craves, the second digital video feature from Takahasi Izumi, the winner of VIFF’s own Dragons & Tigers Award (for The Soup, One Morning). Like Takahasi’s previous effort, What the Heart Craves is a minimalist interrogation of relationships where the keenly observed details (the banal exchanges that wrongly-matched lovers have to avoid making waves, the strangely intimate conversations one can only have with a stranger) are pretty much all you get.

The film follows Kurata, Mukai and Shitara as the consequences of this mix-up unfold. Along the way, we learn that Shitara used to be friends and roommates with Mukai’s girlfriend (the certifiable) Kozue, and that Kurata’s next door neighbour hides at his house whenever her boyfriend beats her (the walls are so thin in these cramped Japanese apartments that light scratching can make your presence known next door). But plot isn’t really much of a concern for this filmmaker - he has tiny but huge things on his mind.

What the Heart Craves
Takahasi Izumi | Japan | 2007 | 98min
Thur. Sept. 25 | 6:00pm | Empire Granville, Theatre 5
Thur. Oct. 2| 12:00pm | Empire Granville, Theatre 5