By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Carlos Reygadas
Starring: Alejandro Ferretis | Magdalena Flores | Martín Serrano | Yolanda Villa
Country: germany, mexico, netherlands, spain
Year: 2003
Running time: 122
IMDB: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0322824
Michael says: “JAPÓN is a bold and audacious first film from Mexican director Carlos Reygadas. There is an undeniable power in its imagery and its worldview, both beautiful and brutal. Yet for a first film, it also plays a little too obtuse, with symbolism that is vague and subtext that the three of us who saw it all struggled to unearth.
“A middle-aged man leaves the city to find a remote village at the bottom of a canyon, separated from the rest of the civilized world. It is here he intends to end his own life. All we know of him is that he was a painter who cannot seem to create anymore, and he has a limp. Upon his arrival at the village, he ends up staying with an elderly woman, Ascen (short of Ascension, where Jesus rose to heaven… unlike Assumption, where Mary the Virgin Mother was assisted by angels into heaven.) The two begin a journey that is both inevitable and surprising.
“Along the way, the harsh reality of life and death surrounds the man, especially in the animal world. Birds, horses, cats, dogs…and ultimately man… none are safe from the brutalities of the world. Yet along with death there is sex, the expression of life. And there’s lots of that going on as well.
“Ultimately, where we expect a revelatory, life-affirming film, we get a harsh, ironic film that ends on a stark down note. With echoes of AMORES PERROS and Abbas Kiarostami’s A TASTE OF CHERRY, Reygadas has crafted a powerful film, but perhaps next time he’ll let the audience in on the story a bit more.” 3 cats