1981-1990

letterboxd:
The psychosexual drama Yoji, What’s Wrong With You? examines the identity of women as mothers in Japanese culture, through an Oedipal narrative of a skewed “family romance.” When Yoji announces to his mother that he wants her to meet a new girlfriend, the mother’s jealousy destroys the relationship. Idemitsu’s signature device of using a television monitor within the domestic space works as a powerful metaphor for the ubiquity of the mother in Yoji’s psychological life. Idemitsu’s melodramas always articulate a double-edged irony: With no identity outside of her maternal role, Yoji’s mother fastens onto her son, ultimately destroying him. Yoji himself is seen as emotionally stunted, unable to leave his mother or experience love for any other womanRead More »

letterboxd:
HIDEO, It’s Me, Mama is a psychological melodrama that introduces narrative and structural devices that are integral to Idemitsu’s work. Exploring the flawed universe of the contemporary Japanese family, she focuses on a woman’s identity as mother through mother-child and husband-wife relationships. Hideo, a young man living away from his parents, is kept under constant surveillance by his doting mother via an omnipresent television monitor. In a cogent metaphor for familial relations in the media-saturated culture of contemporary Japan, Mama can only communicate with her beloved, absent son through the video screen. Idemitsu’s poignant irony is embodied in the scene in which Mama, blind to her husband’s needs, caresses Hideo’s video image. (Electronic Arts Intermix) Read More »

Quote:
A robber regrets having brutally hit an elderly woman in order to snatch off her handbag and attempts to make up for the damage he inflicted. But his past deeds as snatch thief hunt him, keeping him from restarting his life anew.Read More »

Synopsis:
When an entire generation embraces the concepts and sentiments a writer expresses
in a novel, that’s the clear sign of a masterpiece. Jo Se Hee’s 1976 short novel
A Ball Shot by a Midget was born in a period when the government actively censored
popular culture. The themes presented in the novel, such as the conditions of labor
workers and their movement in the 70s, made such an impression at the time that the
student movement of the 80s used this text as a sort of manifesto.Read More »

A team of astronauts land on an inhabitable planet and form a society. Many years later, a single astronaut is sent to the planet and becomes a messiah.Read More »

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Juliana is a thirteen-year-old girl who runs away from home to get away from her stepfather’s abuse. On the streets, she must face the struggle to survive. She soon discovers the marginalization girls face when trying to get street work and decides to cut her hair and disguise herself as a boy. She joins a group of boys who sing in Lima’s microbuses, protected and exploited at the same time by a crook. Juliana’s rebellious nature and her feminine strength lead her to head a child revolution.Read More »

A rare documentary on the filmmaker John Waters, of such movies as Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos, and Hairsparay.

About an hour, quality is poor I guess, looks like a vhs source, nothing that is distracting.Read More »

Adventure-drama based on the life of Naomi Uemura (Nishida), the first Japanese mountain climber to scale most of the world’s highest peaks and explore the arctic and Antarctic.Read More »

Quote:
Based on renowned novelist Kenneth Pai Hsien-yung’s novella, Jade Love is regarded as the best film adaptation of all of Pai’s work. Set in 1940s Southern China and told through the eyes of a 10 year old boy, Jung, the film relates the story of Jung’s beautiful nanny Jade and her mysteriously reclusive “younger brother” Ching Sheng. Jade is a middle-age woman who’s sweet and graceful appearance belies her unfulfilled inner life. The film represents complex desire within a tragic story and explores the situation of women in traditional Chinese society. It depicts female psychology in a classical, realist style within a nuanced and exquisite atmosphere.Read More »