Kumiko Ito
1982 (44 года)クリアネス
Tetsuo Shinohara
Kiki Sugino, Toshihiko Hosoda
Sakura is a 20-year-old college student who has sex for money to fund her shopping addiction. After her customers leave her apartment, she spends her time spying on Leo, a young, beautiful, and (dyed) blond-haired boy, who works at a male escort service across the street. One day, Leo pays her a visit, and so starts an unlikely friendship. But Leo has a troubled past. He is the son of a prostitute who worked for his current pimp and died before she could repay money that she owed. He himself entered the business when he graduated from junior high school. Though Leo refuses to make love to Sakura (he has a policy of not having sex outside of work), the two fall in love and become inseparable until Leo gets into a fight with Sakura's boyfriend and gets him into a car accident. Leo turns himself in, and Sakura moves to Okinawa to wait for him at their dream destination.
CLEARNESS
Chronicle of My Mother
Masato Harada
Koji Yakusho, Kirin Kiki
Best-selling novelist Kosaku Igami has made a career out of using his family as fodder for his novels, much to their dismay. When his mother, the spirited family matriarch, is diagnosed with dementia, Igami must come to terms with the toll his own behavior has taken on his increasingly distant family and resolve his own long-simmering resentments. Evocative of classic Ozu, this gorgeously wrought epic family portrait explores the tenderness and trappings of familial bonds.
Chronicle of My Mother
ハッピーフライト
Shinobu Yaguchi
Seiichi Tanabe, Saburo Tokito
A variety of aviation professionals such as pilots, flight attendants, the ground crew, mechanics, dispatchers, controllers, and the bird patrol crew all support a single flight. They have only one mission: to secure the safety of the passengers.
Happy Flight
日本の自転車泥棒
Tadakazu Takahashi
Tetta Sugimoto, Yumiko Fujita
Steel-worker Saito Tetsuo, driven by an unexplained anxiety, steals bike after bike to move away from his hometown to Tokyo. Through snow-storms and empty landscapes, the breathtaking photography allows us to look deep into the mindscape of a man searching for an answer - although the question itself is never quite articulated.
The Bicycle Thief Was Bad
死刑台のエレベーター
Akira Ogata
Michiko Kichise, Hiroshi Abe
A phone conversation occurs between a man and a woman. They both state their love for each other and that they will do this so they can be together. The woman is in a hotel room with a view of the port. The man is inside of a parked car with a view of the ocean. A man named Colonel appears and hands the man a box with a loaded gun inside. The Colonel states "its a present from the witch". The woman's name is Meiko (Michiko Kichise) and she is the young wife of Takamitsu Temiyako (Takamitsu Temiyako) - president of a large medical corporation. The man in the parked car is Dr. Tokito Takahiko (Hiroshi Abe) an employee of the large medical corporation. This evening, Meiko and Tokito will implement their plan to murder Meiko's husband and frame his death as a suicide.
Elevator to the Gallows
受難
Ryoko Yoshida
Mayuko Iwasa, Kanji Furutachi
A singular deadpan comedy, The Passion tells a story of a young woman raised in a convent named Frances-ko (Mayuko Iwasa), after Saint Francesco. Distressed by not knowing about love and sex, she calls out for a sign from above, but instead hears a voice from below. A human-faced growth speaks to her from between her legs, constantly berating her, calling out "Woman, you are worthless!" Mr. Koga, as she names it, continues the verbal abuse, yet Frances-ko somehow adapts, forming an adversarial yet symbiotic relationship. This bizarre film, based on Kaoruko Himeno's acclaimed 1997 novel of the same name, is skillfully directed by Ryoko Yoshida, lensed by veteran cinematographer Akiko Ashizawa, grounded by Iwasa's show-stopping performance and enlivened by the hilarious Kanji Furutachi, who lends his voice to the chauvinistic Koga. The soundtrack boasts an unmissable eclectic score by legendary experimental musician and composer Otomo Yoshihide.
Passion
