Tag: 2019

MIFF 2021: Hsin-Chien Huang’s ‘Bodyless’ and the commodification of memory

It’s often difficult to talk about virtual reality divorced from its native context. Then again, when you’re dealing with the realms of virtual, who is to say what is what is the proper format?

Taiwan’s Hsin-Chien Huang is no stranger to the medium, having won Best VR Experience at Venice in 2017 for La Camera Insabbiata, his collaboration with polymath Laurie Anderson. In BODYLESS (失身記), a 2019 VR installation now doing the festival circuit, Huang explores his own memories during Taiwan’s martial law (or ‘White Terror’) period in the 1970s and 1980s.

Inspired by the stories of his mother, who is now suffering from dementia, Huang’s primary aim is capturing those stories in the hopes that it will trigger some of her own memories. In that sense, the more recent term of ‘extended reality’ (or XR) is more apt.

An abstract piece on the surface, there’s also a haunting narrative that pulls it all together. “With new technologies, they stole my face, reduced and distorted my kinsmen’s and countrymen’s memory about me,” Huang says directly in an on-screen statement. “I am no longer a full man. I have become a symbol to deceive people, a commodity in the digital world to be traded.” Stepping inside Huang’s inner world for a time, it’s an ofttimes hauntingly beautiful and regularly surreal filtered version of memory.

Some of the visuals are taken directly from Taiwanese traditions and local customs, digitised versions of folk figures and slivers of memory fragments. Lim Giong’s hypnotic musical score helps transports us out the physical and towards something less tangible. It’s called BODYLESS after all, and that translates to all aspects of Huang’s intriguing production.

While the imagery may not make literal sense on the first pass through, Huang sees it as a way of narrating emotions, a kind of catalogue of an inner journey. There are more obvious structures of oppression and folklore, but there are also entire worlds found on top of a kitchen table while an unseen person reads a newspaper. We’re guided through it by actual and metaphorical hands, but also left to form our own thoughts on what we’re seeing.

“At last,” he concludes, “I find myself being erased completely from the world.” The irony, of course, is that this film is successful in doing just the opposite of that. Reclaiming a little slice of memory, both his mother’s recollections and his own, he may have guaranteed that that he has left a permanent piece of himself for future viewers to find.

2019 | Taiwan/China | DIRECTOR: Hsin-Chien Huang | WRITER: Hsin-Chien Huang | DISTRIBUTOR: MIFF 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 29 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 5 – 22 August 2021 (MIFF 2021)

July 30, 2021
Review: The Amusement Park

Somewhere in a parallel universe, there’s a George A. Romero who had a massive success with There’s Always Vanilla (1971) and continued to make romantic comedies well into his 70s.

In another divergent path, there’s this: a film on elder abuse originally commissioned by the Lutheran Society but shelved due to its extreme content. Planned for release in 1973 — the same year as Season of the Witch and The Crazies — one wonders if the Lutherans had pulled out the wrong George from their Rolodex.

Structured around the titular amusement park, it’s a disturbing vision of how society treats the elderly. Led by narrator/star Lincoln Maazel (who Romero fans will recognise from 1978’s Martin), it opens like any other piece of edutainment by reminding us that the elderly are a “much misused natural resource.” As Maazel turns to the camera and reminds us that “one day you will be old,” we’re already terrified.

In a white void of a waiting room, presumably representing the blank space society assigns the elderly, Maazel encounters a battered and bloody version of himself who claims “there’s nothing outside.” The principal Maazel takes it upon himself to leave the room, and is transported to the titular amusement park.

Shot at the now-defunct West View Park in (where else?) Pennsylvania, Wally Cook’s script rapidly descends into a whirling dervish of nightmarish visions that mentally and physically break down the protagonist. Bumper cars stand in for the stereotypes about elderly drivers. Accusations of perversion are levelled at any interaction with children. A marching band drowns out an older woman pleading for help. A snake oil salesman sells insurance while the elderly battle it out for basic medical equipment.

Shot in a similarly loose style to There’s Always Vanilla — with short and savage cuts, overlapping dialogue and random cutaways — Romero and Cook’s vision veers from educational to psychological horror in short order. In a subplot, a young couple is shown a vision of their future, causing the young man to physically assault Maazel. Roving motorcycle gangs (almost a decade before Knightriders) beat him to a pulp. The amusement park experience effectively ends with Maazel broken and weeping when a young girl, the one person who showed him kindness, is ushered away by her mother.

Maazel, who was a spritely 70 at the time of filming, didn’t start his onstage acting career until 56, and in some ways is the perfect embodiment of this film’s dark message. Living to the impressive age of 106, he clearly survived his own ride through life’s amusement park despite only being credited in one more film. THE AMUSEMENT PARK may not be the way he intended to be remembered, but it’s now a strangely appropriate legacy for both the star and his director.

2019 | USA | DIRECTOR: George A. Romero | WRITERS: Wally Cook | CAST: Lincoln Maazel, Phyllis Casterwiler, Harry Albacker, Sally Erwin, Pete Chovan | DISTRIBUTOR: Shudder, IFFR 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 52 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 8 June 2021 (Shudder)

June 3, 2021
Review: BOLT

It’s been just over a decade since the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster of 11 March 2011. Dozens of films and documentaries have been made since then, from the blockbuster action film Fukushima 50 to the more contemplative Voices in the Wind. With BOLT we get a little of each as Kaizo Hayashi’s stark film splits the narrative three ways.

The film opens on 3/11 with literal falling bolts, and a crew of men are assigned as the immediate response to the nuclear leak. Playing out almost like a horror film, a man (Masatoshi Nagase) witnesses a team heroically try to reattach a bolt to stop a radioactive leak, only for the efforts to fail at the last minute.

The tense opener belies the tone of the rest of the film. The two subsequent sections — simply labelled ‘Episode 2’ and ‘Episode 3’ in elegant on-screen text — are set a couple of years following the event. Here we see how the man’s life has irrevocably changed since that fateful day.

In the second episode, set in the evacuation zone exactly two years later, the man is assisting the clean-up efforts. Pursued by the past, represented by the repeated motif of a colourful aurora following him, he leafs through photos albums (left from the before times) while spotting bodies that aren’t really there. When speaking to his motivations, he simply replies that “Somebody has to do it.”

This becomes something like the film’s unwritten theme: by the time we reach the third episode, where he is one of the last left helping, his usefulness has become almost a compulsion. Yet when he encounters a woman with a flat tyre on her way to Hokkaido, his personal cycle might at last be broken.

From the claustrophic and gritty realism of the opening scenes to the crisp Yamagata snowscapes of the final episode, Yûichi Nagata’s photography is unquestionably handsome. This greatly aids the laser focus of this particular take on the tragedy, one that doesn’t attempt to take a snapshot of a whole nation but rather funnel some of those feelings into the experience of a single man.

As the film takes its final steps, Kaizo Hayashi veers the audience into slightly surreal territory. It’s emblematic of the way that the leading man’s mind has been divided in the years since the incident. Yet as an overt reference to the Tokyo Olympics is dropped, it’s suggested that the nation is now ready to move on, even if the man is taking his first steps in that direction.

2019 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Kaizo Hayashi | WRITERS: Kaizo Hayashi | CAST: Masatoshi Nagase, Sarara Tsukifune, Kazuhiko Kanayama, Elvis Goto, Shima Onishi | DISTRIBUTOR: Dream Kid, Nippon Connection (GER) | RUNNING TIME: 80 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-6 June 2021 (Nippon Connection)

May 31, 2021
Review: Queer Japan

Japan has one of the more complex and arguably misunderstood relationships with its LGBTQI+ community. Canadian writer, fashion designer and filmmaker Graham Kolbeins explored this in the course of editing several books on gay erotic manga.

What he discovered from his interviews was that Japan was “in the middle of an LGBT boom.” Yes, there is still some way to go when it comes to recognition of same-sex couples and anti-discrimination laws. Yet QUEER JAPAN posits that Japan isn’t culturally homophobic so much as it is slow to change traditions.

Kolbeins doesn’t explore these issues with any depth, instead taking a broad brushstroke approach via a series of character studies. There’s always the danger with a project like this that it will be a goggle box of outsiders looking in, an all too common thread in western films about Japan. Thankfully, this fairly comprehensive look at LGBT representation and life in Japan is an incredibly detailed and empathetic examination of the spectrum.

Nogi Sumiko, Atsushi Matsuda, Hiroshi Hasegawa, Gengoroh Tagame, Akira the Hustler, and Tomato Hatakeno

“Maybe it’s a kind of theatre,” says Japanese drag queen and artist Vivienne Sato, “but the starting line is much further back.” Yet if Sato’s recognition of how far the culture has to go, Kolbeins’ 100 interviews conducted over three years ensures that her comments are not presented in a vacuum. Prominent voices like Akira the Hustler, non-binary performance artist Saeborg, and manga artists Hiroshi Hasegawa and Gengoroh Tagame (G-Men) appear alongside Aya Kamikawa, first openly transgender elected official in Japan. There’s also video game designers, performance artists, bar owners, academics and YouTubers.

Kolbeins also takes the time to explore the politics of various scenes, from the women-only party that’s been running at Bar Goldfinger since 1991 through to broader ‘gay quarter’ of Tokyo in Shinkuku Ni-Chome and associated Pride March. There’s a completely exploitation-free exploration of various fetish scenes too, albeit peppered by some cheeky and deliberately provocative interviewees. “This world just exists in tangent,” comments Margarette, the organizer of the Department H fetish club. Through the compilation of their intersecting perspectives, Kolbeins’ message is clear: the LGBTQI+ culture in Japan is as diverse and deep as the global culture. It’s also growing.

From a technical point of view, it’s a slick affair. Starting with bright neon titles that flicker between romanji and hiragana/katakna, Kolbeins and co-photographer John Roney ensure that the visuals are as interesting as their subject matter. Their camera never flinches away from explicit imagery either, making this a refreshingly frank exploration of sex and sexuality that contrasts with Japan’s perceived conservatism.

By the end, there’s a feeling that we have a thorough understanding of this group of people – and that seems to be the main point. “In the midst of all this attention,” laments one subject, “Japanese people aren’t ready to move on yet.” Hopefully this excellent document brings mainstream Japan one step closer to understanding that this culture is part of their tradition as well.

2019 | US, Japan | DIRECTOR: Graham Kolbeins | WRITER: Anne Ishii, Graham Kolbeins | CAST: Nogi Sumiko, Atsushi Matsuda, Hiroshi Hasegawa, Gengoroh Tagame, Akira the Hustler, and Tomato Hatakeno | DISTRIBUTOR: Altered Innocence | RUNNING TIME: 99 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 11 December 2020 (Online)

December 9, 2020
Review: Kim Ji-Young, Born 1982

Originally released in its native South Korea in 2016, Cho Nam-Joo’s book shot to fame in South Korea when floor leader of the Justice Party’s Roh Hoe-chan gifted the book to President Moon Jae-in. The book, which concerns a stay-at-home mother with depression, was inscribed with a message that read “Please embrace ‘Kim Ji-young Born ’82.’”

The film adaptation of KIM JI-YOUNG, BORN 1982 (82년생 김지영) arrives in a timely fashion as the global #MeToo movement shares similar true tales of everyday discrimination. Most descriptions will tell you that the titular Kim Ji-Young (Jung Yu-Mi) is an ordinary woman in her 30s who starts experiencing signs of being someone else. Of course, that spooky sounding plotline speaks more to the ‘otherness’ she has been experiencing her whole life as a woman in Korea.

This film signals the feature directorial debut of actor Kim Do-young, perhaps best known for roles in films like The Righteous Thief (2009). In translating the novel to the screen, she and co-writer Yoo Young-ah (On Your Wedding Day) have managed work Cho’s vignettes into a single narrative while maintaining the cumulative impact of institutionalised sexism. From dealing with groping as a schoolgirl to familial and societal expectations of Ji-young as a mother, her wants and needs have consistently been secondary to those of her brother, husband, and father.

Ostensibly about indoctrinated misogyny in South Korea, there’s a universality to Ji-young’s experience. Following the book’s structure of a life as a case study, albeit without the bookends of a male doctor analysing her experience, Ji-young’s life might be viewed by the men in her life extraordinary but the truth is that it’s the cumulative and systemic micro (and let’s face it, macro) aggressions that determine her fate.

Early in the film, Ji-young overhears someone referring to her coffee break with child in tow as a “comfortable life,” a viewpoint shared by many men in her circle. Her father gets easily outraged by any woman’s role that is not child-rearing, while Ji-young’s mother-in-law is furious that her return to work might jeopardise her own son’s career.

Jung Yu-Mi – known for her roles in Oki’s Movie, Train to Busan and Psychokinesis – delivers a powerfully understated and award-winning performance. Her stoicism in the face of prosaic prejudice gives added weight to the film. Equally fierce is Ji-young’s mother, who’s vocal opposition to the men in their lives leads to a semi-breakdown on screen. The men, of course, stand about impotent in the face of emotion.

When the book and film were released in Korea, headlines spoke of it increasing tensions in the local market and couples breaking up over it. The messaging is not necessarily subtle, but neither is the discrimination against women. It’s precisely the ordinariness of these (typically male) viewpoints that, when taken together in a single document such as this, demonstrate how stacked the system is against career-minded women. Yet it would also be very easy to dismiss this as a Korean problem, and if this timely tale shows us anything it’s that society has a collective culpability in perpetuating it or a responsibility to instigate change.

2019 | South Korean | DIRECTOR: Kim Do-young | WRITER: Kim Do-young, Yoo Young-Ah| CAST: Jung Yu-mi, Gong Yoo, Kim Mi-kyeong | DISTRIBUTOR: Little Monster Entertainment/Korean Film Festival in Australia (AUS)| RUNNING TIME: 120 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 29 October – 5 November 2020 (KOFFIA)

Read more coverage of South Korean cinema from the silent era to festivals and other contemporary releases. Plus go beyond Korea with more film from Asia in Focus.

November 2, 2020
Review: Wild Swords

Li Yun-bo made his feature debut in 2016 with Something in Blue, but was already known to the film world as the co-founder of websites Moviegoer and Cinepedia – not to mention the online film show Let’s be Crazy about Films Together. So, this history of cinema is very present in WILD SWORDS, a film that consciously recalls the roots of the wuxia genre.

By way of background, famed assassins the Nameless Sect (which feels like, you know, a name) have ostensibly been wiped out during a conflict with the Tang-men Sect, including star assassin Chang Wei-ran. Ten years later, thief Guo (Zhang Xiaochen) is arrested and Wang Yidao (Jian Zhao) is hired to escort him to his destination. Cue the various attackers who are keen to work out the connections between Guo and the enigmatic Chang Wei-ran.

Filled with stylish close-ups and a series of initially understated deaths, this is one of the most low-key wuxia films we’ve encountered in a while. Unquestionably stylish and referencing an almost mythological method of storytelling, you could almost describe the first third of the film as ‘gentle’ were it not for the violent subject matter.

It’s a bit like the flowers that are referenced in the film (and pictured above). They only bloom for a brief window, but when they do it is something to behold. “When they blossom,” says one character, “it is high time to have a drink.” The same could be said of WILD SWORDS, a film that takes its time to bloom.

There’s always a risk that this kind of set-up can be repetitive, especially if you aren’t inclined towards a singular style of action. Backed by Piao Songri’s (The Crossing) slick cinematography, Li Yun-bo varies his fight styles throughout the film: sometimes its individual combat, at other times it’s a group against Guo. Sometimes, it’s time for a disembodied arm to go flying.

We have to question the organisational structure of an assassin group that only lets in new members every few years, and makes people fighting to the death for leadership: the WHS paperwork alone would be a nightmare. Yet as it works its way towards a self-aware and bloody finale, Li Yun-bo may just have a cult following in the making.

2019 |China| DIRECTOR: Li Yun-bo | WRITER: Li Yun-bo | CAST: Xiaochen Zhang, Yongliang Sui, Shang-bai | DISTRIBUTOR: Adelaide Film Festival (AUS)| RUNNING TIME: 92 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 14 – 28 October 2020 (AFF)

Read more coverage of Chinese cinema from the silent era to festivals and other contemporary releases. Plus go beyond China with more film from Asia in Focus.

October 29, 2020
Review: Wet Season

Anthony Chen’s second feature may be called WET SEASON (热带雨), but in weather terms its more like the seasonal build-up. Filled with slow-burning tension, one where you always feel like you’re on the cusp of something, it almost never catches fire. After all, embers get notoriously damp in the rain.

The Singaporean drama is, at its core, a coming of age drama about the relationship between school teacher Ling (Yeo Yann Yann) and secondary student Kok Wei Lun (Koh Jia Ler). While there is an inevitability to their interactions, Chen’s understated film is all about character, mood and setting.

That setting, as the title would imply, is a frequently rain-soaked one. This leads to an incredibly claustrophobic feeling in the first half of the film. Ling’s drives back and forth between work and home are often filled with her anixety as glimpsed through a raindrop streaked windshield. Her tense relationship with her husband Andrew (Christopher Lee) is built around their struggles to conceive a child. She’s also taken on the burden of caring for her bed-ridden father-in-law.

While there’s a pervading feeling that we know exactly how this is all going to turn out, it’s to Chen’s credit that the film doesn’t go there as rapidly as one would expect. Chen’s pacing is so measured that the film appears to be an aimless series of transitions at times. When the dam bursts, in a scene that’s appropriately uncomfortable to watch, it feels more like a sad inevitability than anything titillating or climactic.

What makes WET SEASON worth sticking around for is the Golden Horse Award-winning performance of Yeo Yann Yann. She’s difficult to read at first, and we ponder whether her closeness to the boy is one of misplaced maternalism or something else. Yet as Wei Lun becomes more irrational, possessive and inappropriate, we see a strength emerging in Ling that becomes the backbone of the film.

The bittersweet ending is almost a step too far, even if it does finally leave Ling in a place of empowerment. Here we come to the realisation that the film has not strictly been about a teacher-student relationship at all, and that the coming-of-age aspects are more about one’s late 30s than late teens. One suspects that this perspective would add a great deal to a second viewing, although Chen asks a fair bit of us for this minor payoff.

2019 | Singapore | DIRECTOR: Anthony Chen | WRITER: Anthony Chen | CAST: Yeo Yann Yann, Koh Jia Ler, Christopher Lee | DISTRIBUTOR: MIFF 2020 (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 103 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 6-23 August 2020 (MIFF)

Read more coverage of Singaporean cinema from the silent era to festivals and other contemporary releases. Plus go beyond Singapore with more film from Asia in Focus.

August 17, 2020
Review: Suk Suk

LGBTQI+ rights have come a long way in Hong Kong over the last few decades. As recently as last year, the Yeung Chu Wing v Secretary for Justice case finally conceded that laws specifically targeting gay men are incompatible with the Basic Law.

Yet there is still a long way to go, with recognition of rights for same-sex couples, marriage equality and public housing rights still in contention. With SUK SUK (叔．叔), known as Twilight’s Kiss in some markets, director Ray Yeung explores the underlying discrimination from a perspective that’s been largely unexplored in Hong Kong cinema: the intersection of ageism and homophobia.

Of course, LGBTQI+ representation has been historically slim in Hong Kong cinema. Even as one of the longest-running programmers as Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival (HKLGFF), Yeung conceded in a recent interview that there’s “really only a handful of LGBT movies locally. Happy Together (1997), He’s a Woman, She’s a Man (1994), Sisterhood (2016) and the work of filmmaker Scud (Utopia) are notable exceptions, of course.

In Yeung’s latest film, Pak (Tai Bo), an aged taxi driver who refuses to retire, meets Hoi (Ben Yuen), a retired divorcee and single father, in a park. Both men are closeted, having hidden their homosexuality for decades. Over the course of the film, Yeung studies them as they explore a kind of intimacy previously denied to them.

Relying largely on the central performances of Tai Bo (who won at the HKFCS Awards) and Ben Yuen (nominated for a Golden Horse), Yeung’s gentle pacing and often austere approach to the material sometimes keeps us at arm’s length. It’s worth noting that neither of the leads are themselves gay, although also tackling representation in performance may have been too big a bite for one small film.

In between tender montages set to music of Qing Shan, Yeung manages to fit in an undercurrent of activism as well. Groups of gay men sit around in saunas, clubs and restaurants discussing ways in which they’ve had to stay hidden to some extent. The issue of gay nursing homes becomes something of a sub-plot, culminating in testimony delivered by activists to a hearing. It might result in a bittersweet realisation for our leads, but it’s a point plainly made for audiences.

On some levels, Yeung’s film is more successful as a message delivery device than as a narrative piece. Yet for an industry where gay characters have frequently been used for comic effect or as the best friend in a rom-com, SUK SUK represents something of a quantum leap for Hong Kong cinema.

2019 | Hong Kong | DIRECTOR: Ray Yeung | WRITER: Ray Yeung | CAST: Tai Bo, Ben Yuen, Patra Au | DISTRIBUTOR: MIFF 2020 (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 92 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 6-23 August 2020 (MIFF)

Read more coverage of Hong Kong cinema from the silent era to festivals and other contemporary releases. Plus go beyond Hong Kong with more film from Asia in Focus.

August 10, 2020
Review: First Cow

If the duos that Kelly Reichardt develops onscreen are intriguing, it’s perhaps due to the collaborations she’s fostered offscreen. Will Oldham and Michelle Williams are so strongly tied to her earlier work, of course, but it’s Jonathan Raymond who has been a creative partner since Old Joy.

Partnership is such a central theme to Reichardt’s work, and FIRST COW is no exception. Based on the novel by Raymond, who also co-scripted Night Moves, the scene is set in the Oregon frontier in early 19^th century. Mind you, as present-day establishing scene with Alia Shawkat reminds us, Portland has maintained a timeless vibe for over a century. Even the beard lengths remain the same.

Otis “Cookie” Figowitz (John Magaro) is a chef whose quiet demeanour is at odds with the raucous fur trappers he’s travelling with. When he meets King-Lu (Orion Lee), a Chinese immigrant seeking his fortune, the connection they form changes their fate. They begin working together on a successful cake venture, although it is reliant on stolen milk from the territory’s only cow, owned by the wealthy Chief Factor (Toby Jones).

Reichardt is no stranger to the period setting, having explored the role of women of that era in the brilliant Meek’s Cutoff. Reichardt and Raymond take the bromance and naturalism of Old Joy and combine it with the offbeat opportunities that cows inevitably provide.

In fact, FIRST COW acts as a kind of companion piece to Old Joy. Where that film was a quiet study of two men taking divergent paths at the crossroads of adulthood, here those paths join up in quietly unassuming ways. Cookie and King-Lu have lengthy existential conversations in the gentle embrace of their natural surroundings, much like their counterparts Kurt and Mark did 14 years earlier (or 186 years later if you prefer).

As with Meek’s Cutoff, Reichardt employs a 4:3 or ‘square’ aspect ratio. In that earlier film, there was some very deliberate thinking behind it. By slicing out the periphery, she not only replicated the perspective of the women’s bonnets, but also added to the sense of unseen danger. Here it’s a far more intimate application, forcing the viewer to focus only on those things directly in front of us. In this way, we fully absorb every word and natural element that Reichardt and regular cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt focus on.

At one point in the film, Cookie and King-Lu discuss their differing views of the frontier. “It doesn’t seem new to me,” says Cookie. “It seems old.” Which is a bit like watching a Kelly Reichardt film. Her recurring motifs are familiar, and the setting is as old as cinema itself, but it still feels fresh and immediate at every turn.

2019 | US| DIRECTOR: Kelly Reichardt | WRITER: Kelly Reichardt, Jonathan Raymond | CAST: John Magaro, Orion Lee, Toby Jones, Ewen Bremner, Scott Shephard, Gary Farmer, Lily Gladstone| DISTRIBUTOR: MIFF 2020 (AUS), A24 (US) | RUNNING TIME: 121 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 6 August 2020 (MIFF)

August 7, 2020
Review: Mrs. Noisy

Emerging in the online festival circuit this year is a perfectly timed bit of commentary on our quarantined existence. As we spend more time at home, the quirks of our neighbours become more apparent. Yet as Rear Window taught us, the gaze goes both ways.

Miyoko Kawahara made headlines back in 2006 when she was imprisoned for blasting rock music at her neighbour for over two years. Chihiro Amano’s MRS. NOISY (ミセス・ノイズィ) doesn’t so much as tell this story as rework it from multiple perspectives in the age of social media.

Six years after giving birth to a daughter, novelist Maki Yoshioka (Yukiko Shinohara) struggles to find her writing groove again. Interrupting her concentration is neighbour Miwako Wakata (Yoko Ootaka), who insists on loudly beating her futon and yelling at odd hours. The latter’s seemingly irrational response start a war between the two, one that inspires Yoshioka’s writing and goes viral online.

The first half hour of this film, and the seemingly lighthearted title, might lead you to believe that this is going to be a merry ‘bad neighbours’ style film. Even though I was having physical anxiety reactions to Yoshioka’s behaviour in the first act, there’s a surprising tonal shift partway through that aims to change one’s perspective.

The film escalates initially when Nako (Chise Niitsu) goes briefly missing and it turns out Yoshioka has taken her without permission. Writer/director Amano whips the rug out from under us by then going back and showing the film from the perspective of the titular noisemaker. Revealing more about her own husband, and a tragic past, the story becomes a mixture of pathos, tears and unexpected comedy.

As the social media elements of the narrative come to the fore, Amano almost goes too far into the dark side of the medium. It also paints Yoshioka and her relationship with her husband in a far more negative light, questioning whether she is righteously outraged or just self-centred. At one point she goes so far as to remark “Shouldn’t we try and correct the tone of the media?” Subtle it is not, but it’s a point well made.

When the merits of ‘cancel culture’ are generating almost daily think-pieces, MRS. NOISY may not be the most nuanced examination of trial by media. Still, it earns some props for at least trying to be the Rashomon of neighbourhood dispute films. Having said that, I’ll think twice before reporting that fellow in my apartment building who only plays three Hilltop Hoods songs at top volume next time. Subtweeting is still fine, right?

2019 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Chihiro Amano | WRITER: Chihiro Amano | CAST: Yukiko Shinohara, Yoko Ootaka, Takuma Nagao, Chise Niitsu, Taichi Miyazaki| DISTRIBUTOR: JAPAN CUTS (US), Hikouki Films International (JPN) | RUNNING TIME: 106 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 17-30 July 2020 (JAPAN CUTS)

Read more coverage of Japanese films from the silent era to festivals and other contemporary releases. Plus go beyond Japan with more film from Asia in Focus.

July 28, 2020