Films That I Have Seen in 2017...

Here be some of the moving images that I saw in 2017 that were newly made and released. It's fair to say 2017 was no vintage wine. Largely because a year is a metaphysical concept that cannot be a wine...or even a decent Cheddar. 

But these are the ones that I thought best of these there twelve months...or so...

Always remember: Opinions can vary.

In some sort of order, starting with...

Bamseom Pirates Seoul Inferno

Director: Yoon-suk Jung
South Korea 

Documentary look at punk duo Bamseom Pirates and their album "Seoul Inferno" - as the title suggests. Music, larking about, "political" lyrics, court cases, questioning of their motivations musically...An at times comedic, at times serious political look at South Korean youth and their "relationship" with their neighbours in the North.

The Death of Stalin

Director: Armando Iannucci 
UK/France 

Iannucci-san and friends take their political comedy away from modern-day UK/US politics to Twentieth Century Russian naughtiness following the demise of some famous figure. Joshing and bants galore alongside the dark side of politics to make one laugh and consider. 

Vegalta: Soccer, Tsunami and the Hope of a Nation

Director: Douglas Hurcombe and Geoff Trodd 
UK 

Combining two of my great passions: Japanese culture and Gary Lineker; alongside one of my loathes: mass death caused by a natural disaster, "Vegalta" takes its name from the Sendai football team who rose up the J-League standings in the wake of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. Fans and local residents affected take a look at how the team's success gave them some brief hope after such a huge loss.   

Noise

Director: Yusaku Matsumoto
Japan 

First time director takes a look at youth and motivation in the backdrop of the Akihabara Massacre of 2008. Generational differences create pressures on the youth of the day, creating the potential for a snap-point. Noisy and bleak, "Noise" offers a voice to the little man.  

Junk Head

Director: Takahide Hori
Japan 

Stop-go. Stop-go. That old animation technique is making a comeback. Don't take the plot too seriously with this one; more enjoy the ride around as a human's mind is transplanted into a mishmash robot hopelessly wandering the strange underworld of botched clones. Inventive, if a little mad, this one feels straight out of the Nineties. 

Love and Other Cults

Director: Eiji Uchida
Japan 

Uchida-san's second collaboration with the good folk at Third Window Films. Ai is well mental a one and gets herself caught up in all kinds of wacky cults, gangs, sex scams, nuclear families in an attempt to find herself. The message is: slowing down a bit is a good way to help you find a bit of peace of mind...and then you get off the bus. 


...and those from 2016 with delayed release in the UK that I pretended to first view in 2017...

After the Storm

Director: Kore-eda Hirokazu
Japan

Kore-eda-san's annual festival tourist delivers a nice enough journey about a private detective unable to leave his ex-wife behind. Perhaps a little too comfortable, but with enough realism to keep you interested, this maintains Kore-eda's position as the better Japan person director still churning 'em out with regularity.

Kills on Wheels

Director: Atilla Till
Hungary

Three disabled killers fool Budapest's drug dealers with their unassuming status, though the English title gives little away as to the additional depth offered below the surface. A coming-of-age piece more than a violent action thriller. 

Harmonium

Director: Koji Fukada
Japan

Tadanobu Asano playing some sort of strange person moving into a family home and invading every aspect of their lives with some sort of sinister motive? Can you come round next Tuesday, Asano-san? You can't escape it, can you?! Nice film...but not nice in that way.

The Long Excuse

Director: Miwa Nishikawa
Japan

Sachio's wife's death in a car crash unveils the car crash that is his life in Miwa Nishikawa's well-paced and developed film. It gets inside its characters' heads, as one would hope a film would do. As your life gets worse, so will your hair. 

Destruction Babies

Director: Tetsuya Mariko
Japan

Remember little Akira from "Nobody Knows"? Well, he's grown-up now and likes hitting people in the face. A film that will perhaps annoy many, the realism in the fighting and harsh comment on the surrounding violence of society leaves its mark at least. That Yuya character deserves a slap, hey?!


That makes a nice round total of 11...A football team of films...in the way that Luton Town are scoring lots of goals in the fourth tier of English football...

Raindance Film Festival 2017: Love and other Cults

Lost and out-of-control youth is not uncommon in Japanese cinema, with the rigid formality of Japanese schools countered by the over-the-top rebellion of kids who see no place for themselves within the education system. The second collaboration between British-born, now Japanese-living Third Window Films and director Eiji Uchida after "Lowlife Love", "Love and other Cults" is a film that follows similar lines of others in terms of theme, though the final destination isn't as per the usual.

Ai (Sairi Ito) is a girl who comes in many guises: the daughter of a serial religious and cult follower, she finds little place for herself at home; her mother often distracted by the new fad in her life. Eventually sent by her mother to a cult commune under Mount Fuji at a tender age, she soon finds happiness, before the cult's exposure and mass arrests leave her again without a place to find herself. Growing out of hand, she dyes her hair and shacks up with her boyfriend and his drug addict family of friends by her mid-teens.

Bumping into brief former classmate Ryota (Kenta Suga), she hangs out with him and his gangster mates after being ditched by her boyfriend, but lovingly welcomed by a class president Yuka's (Kana Matsumoto) family. Here, she switches between domestic bliss with her adopted family and her double life working in a hostess bar. Eventually found out, she moves back in with her mother - her apathy no longer a cause for concern - and works as a call girl.

Meanwhile, Ryota, our narrator, holds a torch for Ai, even when they drift apart at various moments. A bit-part player in Kenta (Antony) and Yuji's (Kaito Yoshimura) gang, he quietly keeps his head down, trying to gather together enough money to escape small town blues. Yuji himself has designs on becoming a yakuza, while natural gang leader Kenta gradually begins to reject the life upon meeting, Reika (Hanae Kan), an underwater photographer who shows an interest in him.

What runs throughout the film is the sense that none of the characters are happy. Whether a member of a religion, a cult, a gang, a school group, none feel they have found the place that's right for them. In doing this, despite the central focus on Ryota and Ai, Uchida switches the storyline to Kenta and Yuji and how their lives play out, as all four look to make a life-changing move to find their place, however unusual they may be.

Ryota and Kenta both reject the criminal life: Ryota going to university in Tokyo; Kenta leading a quiet life with Reika, deep-water diving. Being that this is partly based on the true story of a porn star whom Uchida noted for her cult followings, Ai works with Lavi (Matthew Chozick), the former leader of the cult where she was once happy, as a porn star, finding minor fame.

There are warnings that trying to escape a doomed fate are not always easy: Reika abused for Kenta's decision to quit the gang; Ryota losing his savings along the way. But, where other films about lost youth may build to exaggerated and frantic endings, or leave things open without established consequences, the characters of "Love and other Cults" are able to find a place where they are comfortable. The one unable to find this peace, Yuji, is left alone by his yakuza lifestyle. Wherever it may be, and with whoever it is with, the closing theme is one of changing for the better.

Much like the characters' lives, "Love and other Cults" is perhaps a little bumpy along the way. While probably a step-up in terms of production quality from "Lowlife Love", it is not as well crafted and witty. There are many twists of fate along the way that require leaps of faith in the audience, leaving the story flow a little unnatural in parts.

But the sense of peace reached in the film's ending is refreshing from how films of this nature can pan-out. Where the likes of "The World ofKanako" can build into messy, over-zealous finales, the stepping-down a tone by the film's end is welcome, despite the rather choice appearance of a school girl panties porn film script. But then, there is love...and other cults (sic).