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Film critic Justin Chang reviews this series in the Los Angeles Times.
Since his debut fiction feature Maborosi in 1995, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda has quietly built an international reputation as the contemporary heir apparent to the legacy of Yasujiro Ozu through a series of restrained but powerfully moving portraits of Japanese family life. It’s a comparison that Kore-eda himself has rejected and one that has its limitations. Kore-eda displays a masterful attention to stillness and the gentle rhythms of the everyday, but he is equally attuned to the disruptions and dislocations that ripple and break the surface of things. From Maborosi to After the Storm (2016), Kore-eda’s characters struggle with loss, separation, guilt and healing is always tenuous. Kore-eda has also worked compellingly in a variety of genres including documentary (However…), true-life stories (Distance), chanbara (Hana), fantasy (Air Doll) and thrillers, including his most recent film The Third Murder (2017). The Archive is honored to host Kore-eda for a special program of screenings and conversations at the Billy Wilder Theater as part of a series of events around the city in celebration of his remarkable career.
This series is presented in association with the Japan Foundation, Los Angeles; the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; and the USC School of Cinematic Arts, with additional support provided by the UCLA Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies.
Special thanks to: Michael Emmerich, Nobuko Shinno, Miyuki Fukuma, Akira Lippit.
Related events in Los Angeles:
October 18, 7 p.m. | Japan Foundation | RSVP
Lecture and Death of a Japanese Salesman (2011)
Produced by Hirokazu Kore-eda and directed by Mami Sunada, this documentary is a touching and funny depiction of the final days of a cancer-affected man and his family, through the eyes of his daughter. Tomoaki Sunada was a Japanese typical sales representative working more than 40 years in the same company. After retiring, at 67 years old, he was diagnosed with cancer on the final stage. This was the miscalculation of life for a business soldier. In order to sum up his whole life and leave the message to his family, he laid on his last project, i.e. making an “Ending Note” by his own. Then, the “setup” of his departure was launched.
October 25, 7 p.m. | The Ray Stark Family Theatre at USC | RSVP
An Evening with Hirokazu Kore-eda and Nobody Knows (2004)
Four siblings live happily with their mother in a small apartment in Tokyo. The children all have different fathers and have never been to school. The very existence of three of them has been hidden from the landlord. One day, the mother leaves behind a little money and a note, charging her oldest boy to look after the others. And so begins the children's odyssey, a journey nobody knows. Though engulfed by the cruel fate of abandonment, the four children do their best to survive in their own little world, devising and following their own set of rules. When they are forced to engage with the world outside their cocooned universe, the fragile balance that has sustained them collapses.
October 26, 9:30 p.m. | Acropolis Cinema at the Downtown Independent | Tickets
After Life (1998) and Q&A with Hirokazu Kore-eda
Q&A moderated by film critic Justin Chang.
After Life is set in a small mid-20th century social-service-style office, acting as a waystation, where the souls of the recently deceased are processed before entering heaven. "Heaven," for the film, is a single happy memory from one's life, re-experienced for eternity, which each of the deceased must choose within their seven days at the waystation. The story pays most attention to two of the "counselors," Takashi and Shiori. Takashi has been assigned to help an old man, Ichiro (played by Naito Taketoshi), select his memory. Takashi reviews videotape of Ichiro's life and becomes troubled by his memories, causing both him and his quasi-romantic interest Shiori to re-examine their (after-) lives.
