Futatsume no mado

This movie deserves higher acclaim. I can understand why the director dubs it her masterpiece. The imagery is simply beautiful. The colour and the lighting of the sub-tropical Japanese island is captured perfectly. It makes you want to travel there. The rhythm and the tempo of the movie is slow, which make you wander in the wonderful landscape even longer. This is a poem on pellicule. Of course this is not a blockbuster, it is a totally different ball game, not even in the same ball park. It is like comparing techno music to Beethoven. Both have their charms and peers. Thematically, it is pretty far away from the high technological Japan, although there is a passage in Tokio. The sea and the landscape are definitely protagonists as well. As are the hundred years old trees. It is kind of a spiritual experience this movie. For me it was too short, I wished it lasted longer than two hours. You can rewatch the movie in smaller pieces and reflect them. It talks about all the Freudian core concepts: Eros and Thanatos. Life, death, sex and love, youth and old age, they are intertwined in this movie. It makes it a very visceral though subtle experience. It's soaked in the blue colours of the sky and sea, and the gold of the sun and skin colours. The music is very soulful as well, the chants, the prayers make it a very spiritual experience. Very cathartic film, warm, deep, poetic about letting go and awakening love. I am very curious to see this Japan and its incredible nature, this eastern beauty. It's balm for the soul.

Disregard the bubble gum chewing burgers with attention deficit disorder whining about this movie being "boring". Sure, it is slow paced. But it's a very profound and beautiful allegory about nature and life. If you cannot appreciate the poetry of this film, I'm afraid your soul has been rotted away or you never had one.

It wasn't like watching a movie, it was like experiencing life. Perhaps women experience life by being (the director is a woman), and men by achieving. Because it felt like I was immersed in life itself, and not racing to a conclusion. It was a cross section of different lives, at a particular point. And though characterised by huge upheavals, there was stillness throughout. You cannot miss the analogy with the sea, which is a constant presence. Warm and inviting, or lethal and threatening in turn.

Beautiful locales, and Excellent performances. Understated, but spot on. But I thought the ailing mother was miscast. She looked out of place, and far from looking sick, she was positively glowing.

There's some jarring brutality towards animals and plants, perhaps as a reflection of our impotency in preventing death.

All in all, the island will stay with me for a while.

This film is about life and death and love, about existence itself. It talks to us from a far away island surrounded by the Ocean. Of course if you want to perceive such things you must open your mind, listen very carefully and most important you must take your time. Because the film goes slowly, with a pace we are not used to and that you could hate in the beginning or that could make you fall asleep.

Since most things pass through your eyes the director has to show you what you must see: trees, faces, waves… and the camera lingers on these things the time needed to make sure that your feelings are correctly oriented and you are ready to understand.

I'm not sure that everybody is going to like it. Me? Personally I loved it (after a while). And in the end I thought that the Author was correct about everything... for example: aren't kisses the hallmark of love?

This review is not about the film but the crude American taste.

Whenever my cinema-savvy friends criticised Hollywood, I'd jokingly dismiss their arguments, saying I enjoy action-packed, fun films for afternoons and that Hollywood has great production. I stand corrected.

This film has been given a 5 by metacritic. Check out the reviews. They say silent moments are awkward.. or that stares are long... I had an epiphany that Americans and their layman critics have actually no appreciation for an actual good work when they see one. Everybody likes a big Mac but in no way it means you can slam a 5-michelin star cuisine.

I always acknowledged Hollywood films try to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It makes them fun to a point. But I realised today it's not just their audience that is unnaturally confused with junk, but apparently American select critics are actually the lowest common denominator.

P.S. IMDb will not be a universal source until it goes beyond Hollywood standards.