Dodes’ka-den (どですかでん, 1970)

Criterion has just released Akira Kurosawa’s first colour film, Dodes’ka-den (どですかでん, 1970) on DVD. The film is a radical departure in terms of style and subject matter from Kurosawa’s earlier work and its commercial failure led to a period of depression and his attempted suicide in 1971. Critics, on the other hand, have praised the film for its unflinching portrayal of people living in slums on...

Sound of the Mountain (山の音, 1954)

One of Mikio Naruse’s most acclaimed films, Sound of the Mountain (Yama no Oto / 山の音, 1954) is an adaptation of Yasunari Kawabata’s novel of the same name, which had been published in serialized form between 1949 and 1954. The film tells the story of Shingo Ogata, an aging Tokyo salaryman who begins to realize that his family is slowly coming apart at the seams. He has a rather perfunctory relationship...

Nippon Connection 2009

Nippon Connection runs from the 15th until the 19th of April this year. They published their programme earlier this month and the excitement is mounting. As always, they have a packed schedule of events and it will be difficult to decide which events to attend. This year's Nippon Retro features pink films. The Nippon Culture events include everything from a tea ceremony to a Butoh dance workshop....

Wings of Defeat

Chris MacGee recently published an amazing interview with Japanese-American director Risa Morimoto about her documentary Wings of Defeat, which premiered at the HotDocs festival in Toronto back in 2007. The film is about kamikaze pilots during the Pacific War with moving interviews with both pilots who trained as kamikazes but survived the war and Americans who witnessed and survived kamikaze attacks. It is high on my wish list of films to see....

Film of the Sea (海の映画, 2007)

Takashi Ishida (石田尚志, b.1972) is an abstract animation and installation artist in the vein of Norman McLaren, Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye, and Mary Ellen Bute. Not only is Ishida on the cutting edge of the contemporary Japanese art film and installation scene, but he has also made waves internationally with his work. He has most recently been spending a lot of time in Canada where he has done screenings...