New Religion

That is me in the corner - of the balcony ... well you'll understand if you watch the movie, so no pun intended. The movie starts off with quite the ... well there are things happening here that may be hard to stomache to say the least. You have to evolve, to get into the person/character that is portrayed here. No puns intended.

The pacing may not be for everyone. But the characters are really well drawn and portrayed. Depending on what you expect from this, this will float your boat or feel a bit annoying. It was not the best programming to have this and Skinamarink play on the same day the festival took place, if you ask me ... but this was easily way better than the other one. We'll get to that shortly though.

The movie warrants another view, because there are many symbolic scenes and stuff you may miss the first time around. If you don't mind the style and the silence overall ... you'll do it on your own for sure anyway.

The visuals are stronger than the storyline, and the female lead's stunning presence on screen is captivating. It's evident that the director is enthralled by the beauty of Eastern aesthetics, and some scenes are filled with a sense of psychedelic allure. You can feel the director's ambition, potential, and skill in visual language and personal style, but there is still room for improvement, especially in terms of clarity of expression. Looking forward to the director's next work.

However, some characters lack background explanations and character arcs. During the viewing process, I was actually expecting to learn more about the backstory of a few characters, but unfortunately, it was not portrayed.

On one level, "New Religion" comes dressed as the familiar onryo- the departed female child haunting the living (though in this film it is a haunting that is more obviously psychological than supernatural). On another level, this feels much more like a contemporary Panos Cosmatos or Brandon Cronenberg film, particularly in its very offbeat script, lighting choices (particularly the red filter), ambient noise and use of silence during framing shots. The film is a slow-burn, but it is thought-inducing (if that is your cup of brew). It is also strangely pessimistic.

At the heart of the movie is the wonderfully understated acting of Kaho Seto as "Miyabi," the mother whose moment of absence leads to a tragedy that compounds over time until it becomes horrific. As a sort of purgatory (one can only surmise), Miyabi divorces, becomes a call girl, attaches herself to a rather boy-ish club D. J. boyfriend and then finds herself enmeshed in a strange relationship with a client ("Oka," a photographer who lives in a dark room and requires a digital projection of his voice). The client only wants to photographs parts of Miyabi's body one session at a time (spine, legs, ears, etc.). It is a remarkably non-sexual (but also, rather creepy) arrangement. (In that respect, this film's male protagonist-photographer actually does find a cousin in Kurosawa's "Creepy.")

Yet it is the photographer, not Miyabi's boyish boyfriend, who engages her tragedy: Oka tells her at one point that he has kept her daughter alive; that the daughter is still in Miyabi's apartment; that the daughter dreams of her mother. Miyabi knows otherwise; and yet she comes to embrace the premise, leaving her boyfriend and her handler befuddled in the process. At another time, the photographer tells her that he has given her the "dream" of her daughter, but that he wants "her history" in return; that he is like a "moth" and that moths are "envious" of those with a history.

So what are we to make of all of this? Is the photographer a predator drawn to those with tragedies? Or is the point less literal and more general: that we are dealing here with an allegory of grief: That humans seek to piece together various moments of loss and tragedy for a resolution, "meaning" or whole that will nonetheless escape us? Or is it that each little act of selfishness, whether intended or not, adds up to a horrific whole? Or perhaps that our ability to lose ourselves in a fiction leaves us unable to say where we end and others begin (the photographer has quite a bit to say about the dreamer-confronting-the-dreamed in one of his monologues)?

But the film avoids such singular answers. And at the end we are presented with both a type of forgiveness for Miyabi and further horror for her, which seem to defy any notion of resolution. Indeed, if there is an additional backstory here, it is mass violence (the movie does not dwell on this, but rather gives us glimmers of the outside, larger world). And if there is an additional metaphor at work here, it is the idea of metamorphosis; that the photographer "changes" those with whom he comes in contact, and that the change is inevitably catastrophic. Oka promised Miyabi a restoration of her loved one, but uses Miyabi for a hateful end. In contrast, the boyfriend relates to her his belief that Miyabi is singular and cannot be "replaced." He relates to her his desire to spend his life with her, but also concedes his inability to make that happen. He loves "everything," and wants to restore the "fun" of when they first met. In sum, he is no savior.

I can't say that I figured this one out, but it was fun trying. (Bonus points for the Def Leppard "Photograph" references in this film!)

Mentioned on the movie: "One night i had a dream, In the dream i was a moth, but the moth was also having a dream, in which i was in it.

I'm the moth which the moth sees in his dream, but the moth is also myself which i see in my dream, and i got to know that anybody can stare back at the moth.

You can have everything you've ever wished for by staring at it.

It could be your dear daughter or someone who doesn't exist.

There's no beginning or end in a moth's life.

Moths are envious of living things with a history.

You, her, existence from every cocoon, a new history will be born."

Another way to view our reality, but the concept is so deep intimidating the life circle of moth, the storyline isn't developed to show the morality maybe this one is a test for everyone. 4/10.