Hidetoshi Nishijima

Renji, a young husband appears to be cheating on his wife. He thinks she is having an affair with her cousin. She retreats to a large upstairs room covered in cobwebs and is trying to will herself into becoming an insect, just like the character in Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

House of Bugs is an impressively constructed tale, flashing forwards and backwards in time as well as dodging between different characters’ viewpoints. It’s beautifully acted and slowly builds to a creepy dream-like climax.Read More »

Psycho-mystery in which two men confront each other over the murder of a woman in Shibuya.Read More »

Adapted from a short story in Murakami Haruki’s “Men Without Women”. A director’s wife was a playwright, but she died two years ago. When he’s invited to direct a play at a festival in Hiroshima, the director finds his chauffeur to be a stoic woman. The two share many rides, and as communication is initiated secrets and confessions are gradually exchanged.Read More »

Synopsis
In 1983, photographer Gocho Shigeo met an early death at the young age of 36. The view we see reflected in Gocho’s photographic images has become more profound over time since his death and has struck a chord in people’s hearts. While focusing on Gocho’s collection of photographs Self and Others, the film also visits places associated with him, creating a collage with the manuscripts, letters, photographs and voice recordings remaining in an attempt to capture “one more gesture”—a theme pursued by Gocho through photographic expression. This film is neither a critical biography nor a monograph on the photographer. Rather, we are offered a new perception. As if mesmerized, the photographs Gocho left behind captivate us in their gaze.Read More »

Synopsis
Jiro dreams of flying and designing beautiful airplanes, inspired by the famous Italian aeronautical designer Caproni. Nearsighted from a young age and unable to be a pilot, Jiro joins a major Japanese engineering company in 1927 and becomes one of the world’s most innovative and accomplished airplane designers. The film chronicles much of his life, depicting key historical events, including the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the Great Depression, the tuberculosis epidemic and Japan’s plunge into war. Jiro meets and falls in love with Nahoko, and grows and cherishes his friendship with his colleague Honjo.Read More »

Quote:
lotwise, a young husband appears to be cheating on his wife. He thinks she is having an affair with her cousin. She retreats to a large upstairs room covered in cobwebs and is trying to will herself into becoming an insect, just like the character in Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

House of Bugs is an impressively constructed tale, flashing forwards and backwards in time as well as dodging between different characters’ viewpoints. It’s beautifully acted and slowly builds to a creepy dream-like climax.Read More »

Seduction, betrayal, murder, insomnia and apparitions are the elements at play in Wayne Wang’s tense and masterful version of the eponymous short story by Spanish writer Javier Marías, which takes a bewitching look at the meaning of love…Read More »

This film was seen at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Film Comment Selects series, February 2006

Sloppy, silly, and incoherent writing mars writer/director Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s moodily detailed atmosphere in Loft, a story of mummies, cloying book editors, a haunted archeologist, and a hodgepodge of other, random horror paraphernalia. The film starts out with prize-winning novelist Reiko (Nakatani Miki) suffering not only from writer’s block but also from hallucinations and fits that involve coughing up viscous black mud.Read More »