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: Noise

I first went to Japan, namely Tokyo, in September 2008, a little under three months after the Akihabara Massacre - see how I'm using the social media technique of making it all about me! It made me think that in going to Japan, I had little to fear in terms of everyday crime, but had more chance of a random attack from an everyday man whom had snapped. With his debut film, Yusaku Matsumoto examines the sort of motivations that lead individuals to such attacks, the pressures people are put under and how they cope in these scenarios.

Eight years on from the massacre, the lives of seemingly unconnected individuals are the focus: Misa (Kokoro Shinozaki), a teenage part-time masseuse and low level idol performing to small groups of middle-aged men, while avoiding her abusive father at home; the contrasting Rie (Urara Anjo), a disaffected youth, ignoring her father and his attempts at forming a connection; and Ken (Kohsuke Suzuki), a quiet part-time delivery worker, partaking in online studies, while most of his income goes towards his mother's debts.

Based around the Tokyo district of Akihabara, the three main characters gradually find their lives pressured into situations that they can no longer face. Misa's well-meaning manager is under pressure for higher takings; pressure that is put onto Misa. Begrudgingly, he is forced to "hand her over" to his superior to manage, namely what's in her knickers. Losing her mother to the Akihabara Massacre eight years previous, she has suffered at the hands of her abusive father since.

Despite his renewed attempts, Misa is without a father-figure; both her father and manager having let her down. As such, she finds some connection to Rie's father - drawn by her resemblance to his daughter with whom he can't connect - when they meet at her gigs. Rie lacks a mother in her life, and on discovering her father's attendance at idol performances runs away to the same scout who has his designs on Misa; no doubt soon to find herself in a similar situation.

All the while, Ken goes about his daily work, connecting little with those to whom he delivers packages, as well as his work colleagues. His home life is no better; his mother running away, leaving debt collectors knocking at his door and face and about to be kicked-out of his home. Regularly making pre-recorded threatening calls to companies and the police, his new-found homelessness will force him to turn them into action.

The "noise" in question is the non-stop world that continues to force pressure on the lives of the young protagonists, with little opportunity for relief from their elders. And it is generational differences that run as a connecting theme throughout the three main story arcs. With her mother now dead, Misa's father's abuse continued after the massacre, with no communication left between the pair who live under the same roof. The same goes for Rie and her father, with the latter having worked long hours and having to care for his sick father, perhaps leaving Rie the figure of neglect. Ken's mother sees him has a source of additional income for debts, demanding that he makes more money than he does, discouraging him from his studies.

A traditionally hierarchical society in Japan, generational differences and chains of command build on those at the lower ends to the point of breaking, leaving Misa, Rie and Ken wandering, coiled springs, able to go off at any moment. Matsumoto builds this tension well throughout towards the film's finale, which is somewhat sudden and abrupt, but reflects the continuous nature of these pressures.

But some novice learning aside, such as slips into melodrama, this is an interesting social comment on the causes of violence: one-way, aggressive communication, with those at the bottom's voices lost through all the noise.