All posts tagged: teen angst

Eye-On-She-Is-Alone

She Is Alone

Published by Ben Dimagmaliw

High school student Sumiko jumped off a bridge on account of a certain incident, but failed in her attempt to kill herself. Having escaped the grips of death, she returns to school a few months later and soon begins terrorizing her classmate and childhood friend, Hideaki, upon learning he is secretly dating one of the teachers at their school. As Sumiko continues to antagonize and rebuff others, her actions steadily escalate…all for the sake of sustaining her own sense of peril. Director Nakagawa Natsuki graduated from the College of Arts, Rikkyo University and went to study filmmaking at the New Cinema Workshop. She then returned to Rikkyo enrolling in the Graduate Program in Body Expression and Cinematic Arts, Graduate School of Contemporary Psychology. Thereafter she entered the Graduate School of Film and New Media at Tokyo University of the Arts [TUA hereafter]. Though her school history suggests a constant academic pursuit of cinema, in truth the reason for her traversal through various programs was far more pragmatic. In an interview with SKIP City (where She Is …

Eye-On-Amiko

Amiko

Published by Ben Dimagmaliw

Rebellious teens and social rebelliousness have been and are an oft used theme in movies though some of the most memorable works were products of the social unrest of the 60s and 70s, both abroad and in Japan. While a fair degree of such movies are still offered by the independent scene abroad, much of the spirited filmmaking pioneered by such filmmakers as Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Sono Sion, Tsukamoto Shinya, and Ishii Sogo in the late 70s and 80s has all but vanished in Japan. So, when a movie that recaptures much of the feel of those bygone days emerges, not just stylistically but in terms of its content, people take notice. That the director of this movie is a 20-year-old young woman, the youngest ever to participate in the Forum Section of the Berlin International Film Festival, is further cause for excitement. Amiko is the story of a high school girl in a small provincial town who is absolutely convinced the Japanese have lost any sense of spontaneity. But a long conversation with Aomi, a …