Ryusuke Hamaguchi once said he doesn’t believe there is no such thing as pure fiction or pure documentary. In a way, <Happy Hour> represents this philosophy of his. Thanks to the quiet camera work and the sheer length of the movie (5 hours), the characters are fully realized and so realistic that even after the […]

The relationship between camera and object is complicated. In the movie <Nope>, this relationship seems to be about consumption of ideas and images. The movie starts with a dark square-shaped tunnel that shows a Black jockey on a galloping horse. Later in the movie, this tunnel turned out some sort of an organ of a […]

Depicting historic events in an art form is not an easy challenge. For movies, directors have to walk the fine line between over-dramatizing/-fictionalizing and being didactic or documentary-like. They also have very little room in terms of the plot because the events already occurred. Regardless of these challenges, <Quo Vadis, Aida?> rises to the top. […]

In my teenage years, I practically grew up with Joe Hisaishi’s music including the soundtrack of <My Neighbor Totoro>. I’ve always loved the soundtrack but I was never really interested in watching the movie. I just thought the synopsis sounded too simple and plain; a story of two young girls and their interaction with a […]