Friday’s after party for the screening of Three☆Points was attended by indie director Masashi Yamamoto and adult film star Sora Aoi – and more men at the Japan Society at one time. Three☆Points is a sprawling film, two parts documentary and one part fiction. Yamamoto interspersed the stories of nefarious rappers in Kyoto (“I have a friend in Kyoto, so I decided to shoot there,” says Yamamoto) and American GIs waiting to get tattoos at a yakuza-run shop in Kin Town, Okinawa (“Okinawa is beautiful, so I shot there,” says Yamamoto). In the third “point” of the film, Aoi plays a young professional with a split personality. Aoi’s bubbly personality was on display Friday night, as the actress smiled and gave the peace sign to audience members taking pictures.
Japan Cuts enters its final week on Tuesday, July 19 with six films ranging in theme from the buoyancy of teenage love to the despair of alcoholism. The festival’s final film, Into the White Night, is already sold out.
Sketches of Kaitan City
The five vignettes in this film highlight the bleak existences of residents of Kaitan City, an industrial (and fictional) town based on Hakodate, Hokkaido:
- A brother and sister whose lives revolve around the city’s shipbuilding industry
- Toki, an elderly woman who steadfastly refuses to leave her squalid house, which sits on land the city wants to develop
- A lonely planetarium worker with an uncaring son and a wife whose hostess job is more important than her family
- The president of a gas supply company and his unstable wife, who physically abuses their son
- A train driver who is estranged from his son
The common thread throughout the movie is the impending closing of one of the docks, which is scheduled to happen around Christmas.
Control Tower
Also set in Hokkaido, this film is inspired by the song “Control Tower” by the rock band Galileo Galilei. Beautiful stars Kento Yamazaki and Ai Hashimoto play teens who form a bond through their common love of music.
Haru’s Journey
Haru’s Journey is a film about growing up and growing old. Prolific Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai plays a curmudgeonly grandfather on the road with his granddaughter (Eri Tokunaga) in a film that twitchfilm says “will break your heart many times over.” Read Dustin Chang’s review here.
Director Masahiro Kobayashi will introduce the film and participate in a Q&A afterward. 50% of proceeds from Haru’s Journey, which was shot in northeastern Japan, will go to the Japan Society’s Japan Earthquake Relief Fund.
Vengeance Can Wait
A couple pretending to be brother and sister live together in a small room with a bunk bed. When a former classmate – who holds a grudge against the “sister” – moves into the neighborhood, their relationship is exposed.
Wandering Home
The grip of alcoholism strangles not only the alcoholic, but everyone who cares for him as well. The binge drinking Yasuyuki, who was once a wartime photographer, is in the hospital, prompting his ex-wife to return.
Tickets for each screening are $12/$9 Japan Society members, students, and seniors. Tickets can be purchased in person at the Japan Society at 333 East 47th Street, through the box office at 212.715.1258, or online at www.japansociety.org. Those purchasing more than five tickets for at least five different films receive $2 off each ticket, but you must call the box office or make your purchase in person.
Japan Cuts 2011 remaining schedule:
Tuesday, July 19
- 6:30 – Sketches of Kaitan City
- 9:30 – Control Tower
Wednesday, July 20
- 7:00 – Haru’s Journey with Q&A and reception
Thursday, July 21
- 7:00 – Vengeance Can Wait
- 9:00 – Wandering Home
Friday, July 22
7:00 – Into the White Night with Closing Party (SOLD OUT!)