Review: So Long (Ce n’est qu’un au revoir)

Posted on July 18, 2026 by philipbrasor

Guillaume Brac came to filmmaking relatively late in life in that he didn’t study movies as an undergraduate (he went to business school). Consequently, his work has always betrayed a cautious hesitancy with regard to form and style. In his fiction films he comes across as a more subdued Eric Rohmer, leaning heavily on narrative realism and a lot of dialogue. He specializes in the extended human interaction, often while on summer vacation, which is why his latest work, a documentary that’s only a little over an hour in length, focuses on a group of high school students at a boarding school in the Alpine French town of Die as they finish up their last year. All the subjects are anxious about the future and hesitant to leave their friends behind as summer approaches and they enter the world on their own terms. Brac is the perfect fly-on-the-wall observer and captures these young people’s conversations with bracing candor.

For some reason, Brac only interviews the female students, though the school is coed. Many of these girls are from single-parent backgrounds. For them living away from home has turned out to be something of a comfort, and so they are afraid to leave friends who have become their family in all but name. Nours, whose divorced parents raised her on a boat as it traveled the world, says she already feels abandoned a second time as her classmates plan for college. “My father couldn’t handle being a parent,” she says, “so I always felt like a burden.” Jeanne’s own existential crisis is almost anti-natalist, as she assumes she was the product of an unplanned pregnancy. “My parents were educated,” she says, “so why did they decide to have me?”; as if intelligent people would, left to their own devices, not bring children into this terrible world. Diane is still trying to get over losing her sister at a young age, a trauma she’s only learned to confront by discussing her most personal thoughts with the people she met at school. Brac gives us the detailed psychological situation of these girls so that we can draw our own conclusions about their generation, which comes across as thoughtful, intelligent, and completely cognizant of how dangerous the world has become since their parents were their age. This quality is especially apparent in the boys who drift in and out of the frame, especially the dreadlocked, heavily pierced Louison, who speaks insightfully about the hazards of child-rearing and the pointlessness of capitalist striving.

Brac’s photography is invariably gorgeous, taking advantage of Die’s close proximity to mountains, rivers, and forests, where many of these conversations take place. Even in English class, the students discuss heavy philosophical subjects colloquially and clearly, all in a second language. Brac avoids adults as much as possible, and when a figure of authority does enter the picture their purpose seems to be to reinforce our perception that we would be much better off if these young  people were in charge of the world right now, regardless of their emotional vulnerability and uncertain understanding of human relationships. I’m much older than their parents, and I felt privileged to be in their presence. 

In French and English. Now playing in Tokyo at Eurospace Shibuya (03-3461-0211).

So Long home page in Japanese

photo (c) bathysphere productions 2024

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Review: Obsession

Posted on July 17, 2026 by philipbrasor

One aspect of this hit horror film that isn’t covered enough is its humor, especially with regard to its central supernatural instrument. Our hero, terminally shy, barely-of-drinking-age Bear (Michael Johnston), has a deep crush on his co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarrette), whom he’s known since they were kids. He wants to tell her his feelings but his other co-worker, Ian (Cooper Tomlinson), cautions him about stepping over certain lines, and Bear is intimidated by the remark, making him even more frustrated. So he resorts to a commercial gimmick, a novelty toy called a One Wish Willow, which you’re supposed to break in half as you make a wish so as to make the wish come true. Bear wishes that Nikki love him “more than anyone in the world.” The joke is that this toy seems to be mass-produced, and that the eventual bad outcomes of Bear’s wish are something that could have been predicted according to the merchant who sold him the thing. (“There’s a warning on the box, man.”)

The joke resonates under the surface of the story, which posits the current romantic landscape for Gen Z as a minefield dug by too many inchoate feelings chasing unrealistic expectations. Bear’s wish comes true: Nikki, slowly but surely, starts devoting her time and attention to him, at first with genuinely felt affection that nonetheless spooks Bear but eventually with a disturbing lack of inhibition that totally freaks him out. She becomes not only possessive of Bear’s affections but resentful of anything that may distract him from offering them to her, including other friends and acquaintances—even pets. As Nikki’s behavior becomes more and more unhinged, it’s clear to both Bear and the audience that the real Nikki still exists somewhere, trapped beneath the doting single-minded facade that Bear has conjured out of the ether of hell. For sure, the most terrifying moments of the movie are when Nikki’s true spirit breaks through in moments of panicked terror, scenes that director Curry Barker intensifies by often shooting Nikki in deep shadow. And the sex is void of genuine passion, which, given the general atmosphere, is disturbing rather than merely unfortunate. Of course, the movie contains its fair share of more conventional terrors, delivered with an abundance of gore and violence, but those sequences also come off as jokes, albeit ones you hope don’t turn into running ones. 

For all its formal sophistication and subliminal effectiveness in presenting the traps implicit in navigating modern-day sexual consent, Obsession, with its very small cast and simplistic plot, still feels more like a successful experiment than a fully fleshed-out movie production, but given the fact that it’s the biggest box office hit of the year that’s a drawback only a cinematic sourpuss would tout. Truth be told, maybe getting back to simple will do everybody some good. 

Now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku (0570-060-109), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Kino Cinema Shinjuku (03-5315-0978), Shibuya Cine Quinto (03-3477-5905), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Obsession home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2026 Focus Features LLC

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Review: Dead Man’s Wire

Posted on July 16, 2026 by philipbrasor

It would be easy to dismiss Gus Van Sant’s latest movie as an exercise in 70s cinema style, which he pulls off with his usual skill and aplomb, but his recreation of a real life hostage incident that took place in Indianapolis in 1977 is more than just the sum of its fashion fatalities and needle drops. It’s an incisive and sardonic take on how desperate people turn to the media to make their cases in a world that would rather ignore them. Though this is hardly an original theme, Van Sant has found in his protagonist, a wannabe entrepreneur named Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skaragård), a man whose relative decency and intelligence are completely upended by his pathetic need for validation. The fact that the various players who get sucked into his game seem to sympathize with Kiritsis while understanding that they are complicit in his downfall, is the movie’s most salient aspect.

Kiritsis’s gripe is against a local mortgage company that foreclosed on a loan he took out to buy property he hoped to develop into a shopping center. He believes the company purposely discouraged the parties he was dealing with in order to underhandedly take over the property and do the deal themselves. He arrives on the fateful day for an appointment with the company’s president (Al Pacino, overdoing the regional accent), who, in apparently typical fashion, has taken the day off to fly to a resort in Florida; so Kiritsis meets with the president’s son, Richard (Dacre Montgomery), whom he promptly threatens with a shotgun that he attaches to his neck by the titular appliance. Kiritsis’s demands are simple: he wants his money back and an apology, neither of which the president, contacted in Florida, is willing to provide, thus placing his very own son in a very dangerous situation. Kiritsis compromises by setting up a press conference where his grievances are publicized in detail. However, getting to this point is what the movie is all about, as a rookie TV journalist (Myha’la) rallies her meager resources in order to make her name; the local soul station DJ (Colman Domingo), a hero of Kiritsis’s, tries to use his position as a community leader and token symbol of success to convince Kiritsis he can trust the police (though, being a Black man, he knows that he himself can’t trust them); and various acquaintances of Kiritsis, including his brother and a cop he often drinks with at his favorite tavern, try to do the right thing, which tends to shift from moment to moment.

Thanks to Pacino’s presence, the cinema model that first comes to mind is Dog Day Afternoon, but Pacino’s character in that classic was pathetic in an entirely ridiculous way. Skaragård’s Kiritsis is both more technically savvy about carrying out his scheme, and almost pathologically ignorant of what the most likely outcome of his actions will entail. His optimism in the face of overwhelming opposition to his demands is impressive and terrifying, and while the outcome is predictable, it’s also instructive in ways you don’t expect. Van Sant obviously sees in Kiritsis a kindred spirit. Despite his drawbacks as a human specimen, you root for him, because you know he’s probably right.

Opens July 17 in Tokyo at Kadokawa Cinema Yurakucho (03-6268-0015), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Yebisu Garden Cinema (0570-783-715).

Dead Man’s Wire home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2025 Starlight Digital Ventures, LLC

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Review: The Great Arch

Posted on July 15, 2026 by philipbrasor

It seems axiomatic to say that stories about architects are inherently monumental. People who design buildings contend with the future in ways that are different from how other artists work, simply because their creations are supposed to be useful, presumably forever. Novels like The Fountainhead and movies like The Brutalist and Megalopolis present men (always men) who look upon their task as being divine since it affects so many and requires the control of hundreds of people. In a way, the only other artistic vocation that approaches architecture in terms of marshaling human resources for a large work is film directing. 

The protagonist of the French-Danish co-production, The Great Arch, is Danish architect Johan Otto von Spreckelsen (Claes Bang), who in 1983 entered a contest to design a building in the western business district of Paris that would commemorate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution by tying the great monuments of the city together. When his design, a kind of hollowed out cube, is selected, there is consternation because there seems to be no information about von Spreckelsen available. Even the Danish Embassy doesn’t know who he is. However, since the building is the pet project of then President Francois Mitterrand, his aide, the insufferably obsequeous Jean-Louis Subilon (Xavier Dolan, acting way out of type), tracks the architect down and brings him to Paris, where he proves to be every bit as egotistical and protective of his art as any Ayn Rand character, even if all he’s designed up to that point is a few churches and his own home. The director, Stephane Demoustier, doubles down on the technical aspects of the architect’s demands, which repeatedly run up against the entrenched French bureaucracy. In the beginning he manages to cut through much of this red tape thanks to the support of Mitterrand (Michel Fau), the help of a rival French architect (Swann Arlaud) who deigns to be his project manager, and bullheadedly practical wife, Liv (Sidse Babett Knudsen); but once Mitterrand’s party loses the government, the new right-wing regime considers the project a waste of money and attempts to change the design significantly, a move that von Spreckelsen resists mightily but ineffectually.

The story is chock full of conflict but oddly lacking in dramatic tension except in those scenes where emotions run hot. And while the movie is based on a true story, the tragic outcome presented by the script may not have been so tragic in the scheme of things. There is a strange title card at the beginning of the movie that implies much of what we are about to see is made up, including some of the characters (even Liv is mostly a fabrication, apparently), thus adding up to a weird historical juxtaposition that might have been better served by a documentary. As it stands, I want to know more, because the fiction doesn’t sell the story as well as it should. 

In French, Danish and English. Opens July 17 in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Shinjuku Musashinokan (03-3354-5670). 

The Great Arch home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2025 AGAT Films, Le Pacte

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Review: A Useful Ghost and The President’s Cake

Posted on July 10, 2026 by philipbrasor

Thai director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s debut feature, A Useful Ghost, has the opposite effect of being haunting. In tone and pace, it’s closer to the work of Aki Kaurasmaki, with actors striking disaffected poses regardless of what they’re reacting to. Moreover, the first spirit we encounter comes in the form of a household appliance, specifically a vaccum cleaner bought by a home-bound character identified only as the “academic ladyboy” (Wisarut Homhuan) in order to get rid of the dust in his apartment kicked up by a nearby redevelopment project that itself is chronicled in detail as a kind of prelude. Eventually, all these seemingly disparate elements will be brought to bear on the movie’s main theme, but that is almost two hours away. When the vacuum starts coughing in the middle of the night, its new owner calls a repairman (Wanlop Rungkumjad) who shows up a bit too promptly and starts recounting the main story of the movie, which is about another possessed vacuum cleaner, this one by the spirit of a newlywed who wants to reconnect with her widowed husband.

This isn’t the only time that a story is presented within the frame of a larger story, and, in fact, the entire movie consists of characters relating tales that further Boonbunchachoke’s fairly simple idea that capitalism is the handmaiden of political corruption. The newlywed woman, Nat (Davika Hoorne), has actually married into the family of a wealthy industrialist who owns the appliance factory that manufactures the vacuum cleaner she possesses, and her exorcism, so to speak, involves electroshock therapy that allows her spirit to regain human form and look into the dreams of the factory’s workers on behalf of their employers. A powerful government minister then tries to appropriate Nat’s abilities to rid his own family and colleagues of the “ghosts” of those his regime killed in the past for their political views. 

Though Boonbunchachoke never makes it easy to follow one fantastic plotline into another (and often back again) his presentation is so light and amusing that the movie goes down effortlessly, but once it becomes imperative that we understand what he’s getting at the movie becomes laborious if only because the political ramifications are so serious. The ending, though meant to be a release of some sort, feels like a George Romero parody that’s gone off the rails. In the case of A Useful Ghost, the journey and the destination aren’t in sync.

The politics in the Iraqi feature The President’s Cake are more straightforward, though the story is an old-fashioned melodrama. The setting is Saddam-era Iraq on the eve of the Gulf War. Due to international sanctions and the looming conflict, food is scarce and water is rationed. Eight-year-old Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef), who is being raised alone by her grandmother, wins the dubious honor, through a classroom lottery, of baking a cake for the president on the occasion of his birthday, a task that presumably every school in the country has to perform (thus giving rise to a few pointed kid jokes about what Saddam is going to do with all that cake). Being even poorer than her classmates, Lamia doesn’t see how she can possibly afford, much less secure, the ingredients necessary, but she tries, an effort that involves an odyssey of sorts.

Accompanying Lamia on her journey is her beloved rooster Hindi, whose status as a meal-in-waiting lends the film a measure of anxious anticipation that is quickly overwhelmed by everyday reality and a plot that gallops along like the Kentucky Derby. On the way, Lamia hooks up with the requisite male scamp, Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), whose knowledge of the underground economy helps Lamia acquire her wares, but not without frequent suspenseful encounters with criminals, fallen women, and, worst of all, the authorities in their many guises. There are, of course, also Good Samaritans who help Lamia and Saeed on their quest, including a woman who actually teaches the little girl how to make a cake, an endeavor whose double meaning (success! but to what end, really?) is played for all it’s worth. 

Death and destruction is never far away as the Americans launch their attack and Lamia is separated from her grandmother. The President’s Cake is the feature debut of Hasan Hadi, who received invaluable assistance from Hollywood heavyweights like Eric Roth, Chris Columbus, and Marielle Heller that can be seen in the superior production values and ingenious camera placements, not to mention the scary special effects. It’s an accomplished film whose emotional payoffs more than counteract the forced sentimentality of the setups, which feel more and more episodic as the movie progresses. The end may leave you slightly bewildered, but you’ll be glad you and Lamia got there in one piece. 

A Useful Ghost, in Thai, English and Teochew, now playing in Tokyo at Shinjuku Musashinokan (03-3354-5670), Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Euro Space Shibuya (03-3461-0211).

The President’s Cake, in Arabic, now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Chanter Hibiya (050-6868-5001), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011).

A Useful Ghost home page in Japanese

The President’s Cake home page in Japanese

A Useful Ghost photo (c) 2025 185 Films, Haut Les Mains, Momo Film Co.

The President’s Cake photo (c) 2025 TPC Film LLC

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Review: Bring Her Back and Good Boy

Posted on July 9, 2026 by philipbrasor

The Australian Philippou brothers, Danny and Michael, quickly followup their hit debut, Talk to Me, with Bring Her Back, an even more disturbing horror film that relies less on supernatural spookiness; which isn’t to say its plot doesn’t beggar belief, but rather that the constant sense of unease is based solely on the all-too-human aspects of the story and characters. Peril is present from the start, when teenage Andy (Billy Barratt) and his younger stepsister Piper (Sora Wong) are suddenly orphaned by the death of their father. The Australian foster care system believes it is best to separate the two, who object strongly since Piper, who is partially sighted, has mostly been raised by Andy. A savior in the form of former counselor and experienced foster parent Laura (Sally Hawkins) appears. She agrees to take both siblings into her big remote house after initially rejecting Andy because of something he once did. The idea is that three months down the road when Andy turns 18, he can become Piper’s legal guardian, but getting that far proves to be not just a problem, but a nightmare.

Laura is already taking care of another foster child, Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), whose bizarre demeanor, almost complete reticence, and tendency to bruise and self-harm make him an immediately scary housemate. In contrast, Laura is indefatigably upbeat and affectionate to all her charges, though even these seemingly positive attributes creep out Andy and Piper rather quickly. The movie’s mystery is Laura’s reasons for adopting these two because we slowly intuit that she has an ulterior motive—the prime clue is in the title—but one that the Philippous keep at a confounding remove with small-bore horrors that don’t always make sense in the scheme of things. Piper’s wetting the bed on an almost nightly basis initially indicates her mental instability—or maybe it doesn’t, since Laura is revealed to be a seasoned gaslighter behind her benevolent exterior. 

The Philippous keep the viewer intrigued with snippets of what looks like an eastern European pagan ritual, but in general their method of sprinkling clues haphazardly only serve to undermine the integrity of the overall rationale for Laura’s and Oliver’s behavior. Unlike the simplistic spirituality at work in Talk to Me, the more psychological texture of the horror in Bring Her Back is often too dense to comprehend. You want the movie to shut down every few minutes so that you can process the unbelievable thing you just saw before watching the next unbelievable thing. It’s effective, but exhausting.

The rationale behind the short, sharp horror film Good Boy is even trickier, though once it comes into focus the movie feels as if it couldn’t end soon enough. The good boy of the title is a Nova Scotia retriever named Indy, which is the actual dog in real life of the movie’s director, Ben Leonberg. Indy is by far the main reason to watch the film because he’s expressive in ways that make complete sense within the movie’s field of logic. Almost the entire film takes place in an old house in the woods that was once owned by the grandfather of Indy’s owner, Todd (Shane Jensen), who has retreated there by himself after undergoing punishing treatment for a chronic illness that’s never identified, though the most prevalent symptom is fits of violent coughing. Todd’s sister, Vera, whom we only encounter as a voice on the telephone, worries about Todd retreating to what she calls a “haunted house,” thus placing the seed of unease in the viewer’s mind.

The movie is supposed to be told from Indy’s perspective, which means we almost never see a human face, including Todd’s. As Todd’s days in the house accumulate, the dog keeps picking up on strange noises and fleeting shadows that he obviously perceives as threats to his master, and Leonberg’s intentions come into focus as tidbits of information surrounding the house—that the grandfather died of a disease not unlike Todd’s, and that he also owned a very faithful dog—are explained through indirection. There is almost no conventional plot to speak of, but rather a series of occurrences that feel like an extended setup for something monumental. The monumental thing does eventually occur, but it mainly comes as a realization on the viewer’s part and not an actual entity, and thus may feel like a cheat. Good Boy has merit as an exercise in intensifying dread but it doesn’t quite sell its aim of surveying the emotional landscape of a loyal canine. 

Bring Her Back opens July 10 in Tokyo at Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551).

Good Boy opens July 10 in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551), Cinemart Shinjuku (03-5369-2831). 

Bring Her Back home page in Japanese

Good Boy home page in Japanese

Bring Her Back photo (c) 2025 Rackaway PTY Ltd

Good Boy photo (c) 2025 Whats Wrong With Your Dog, LLC

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Review: Nouvelle Vague

Posted on July 8, 2026 by philipbrasor

Richard Linklater is much too practical a director to make a movie that doesn’t attempt to entertain, regardless of the subject matter or mode of expression. As the title of his latest film attests, he means to address the French New Wave of the late 50s-early 60s and gets a lot of visual and aural mileage out of cliches attached to the cinematic movement—cool jazz, chain smoking, epigrammatic line readings, monochrome palette—but presents it all in a playful way, as if he’d studied the trend as a graduate student would for a thesis and then just goofed on it. The film is breezy and non-confrontational, even when the characters aren’t. Cinephiles who might prefer something more scholarly or  nuanced should still find the movie a pleasure to sit through regardless of whether it tells them anything new.

Linklater doesn’t try to explain the movement. The movie simply focuses on the making of the film that capped the New Wave and, in doing so, defined it from then on: Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. By the time Godard finally made it in 1960, all the other French film critics who wrote for Cahiers du Cinema had already directed their debut films. The sunglass-sporting Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) is presented as a stereotype, constantly speaking in aphorisms that betray a condescending attitude toward his peers. He has no use for conventions as professed in what amounts to his creative motto: “Make your own mistakes.” His confidence in his untried methodology is disarmingly magnetic. Getting Belmondo (Aubrey Dullin) to play the small-time crook in his movie is no big deal, since the struggling B-actor is perfectly willing to commit “career suicide”: It’s not the challenge he’s interested in but the freedom Godard offers. Securing the services of Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch) is more difficult, since she’s been tainted by Hollywood success, but thanks to her marriage to a Frenchman who, as her manager, wants to broaden her professional horizons, she takes the role of the American expat without really knowing what she’s getting into. Then again, given Godard’s willfully experimental creative rationale, nobody does, including his producer, Georges de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfurst), who becomes increasingly frustrated by Godard’s structureless shooting schedule and penchant for hiring people (stuntmen, makeup artists) he later decides he has no use for. The production becomes a series of non sequiturs. No one involved has any idea of what the movie is about or what it might look like in the end, including Godard.

As a comedy, Nouvelle Vague feeds off Godard’s intended flouting of cinematic rules, but it also gains considerable traction from Linklater’s obvious tribute to the period and its attendant self-consciously artistic sensibility. Perhaps the most emblematic scene in that regard is the one where Rossellini, while being feted by the cream of the French movie industry at an event in his honor, hoards sandwiches from the buffet for later consumption. Whenever Linklater wants to drop a name, he simply hauls up the famous filmmaker, sets them squarely in front of the camera, and provides their name in bold typography on the screen. The French New Wave thus becomes a kind of running joke, all these pompous men (except for Agnes Varda) acting pompously…but all for a noble purpose! Linklater defends his thesis admirably, if not necessarily seriously, and everyone has a good time in the process.

In French and English. Opens July 10 in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551).

Nouvelle Vague home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2025 ARP – Detour Development LLC

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Review: The Love That Remains and Good Valley Stories

Posted on July 3, 2026 by philipbrasor

The Icelandic filmmaker and visual artist Hlynur Pálmason requires his audience to put in some effort—not a lot, but enough to force you to pay close attention—in order to make sense of the domestic dynamic at work within the family unit at the center of his movie The Love That Remains. The film’s scope takes in a full year during which we notice the seasons pass, but the structure is episodic so home truths can only be understood through patterns of behavior. Moreover, Pálmason often tosses in non sequiturs and fantasy sequences that can throw the viewer off the scent of his narrative quarry. 

In the beginning, the only thing that’s clear is that the couple involved, a visual artist named Anna (Saga Garðarsdöttir) and a long haul fisherman named Magnús (Sverrir Gudnason), have decided to end their marriage, and that both will continue to live in their rural Icelandic community so that Magnús can be close to their three children—twin boys and a teenage girl, all of whom are played by Pálmason’s own kids—and the family dog, Panda. Though the split is an amicable one, Anna and Magnús seem incompatible from the get-go. She’s an earthy, outgoing artist with a worldly sensibility, and he’s a simple working man who is nonetheless insecure in his masculinity. A running joke has him constantly hitting her up for sex that she withholds for one offhanded reason or another (“It would confuse the kids”). But Pálmason’s main method of demonstrating this incompatibility is to show them at work. Magnús spends months at a time on a big boat surrounded by other men insecure in their masculinity while Anna attends to her abstract environmental art mostly by herself. In one extended sequence she entertains a pompous Swedish art dealer with superhuman patience before seeing him off with a muttered “Asshole!” The children, meanwhile, seem to do alright without Magnús around, which isn’t surprising since he wasn’t around that much when he was married to their mother, and it eventually becomes obvious that Anna gave birth to their first child when they were teens. 

Much of the mood is light, even comical, especially in the dream sequences that are usually staged at Magnús’s expense. The ending, which finds Magnús mourning the passing of his role as paterfamilias in a particularly bizarre manner, doesn’t provide much in the way of closure. As a chronicle of connubial disintegration, The Love That Remains is perhaps overly coy in its attempt to prove a point, but it’s also beautifully shot (the landscape is bare and treacherously gorgeous) and disarmingly honest about what a family is all about. 

The photography of the rural setting in the Spanish documentary Good Valley Stories is equally lovely but the effect is entirely different, since the setting is the stories. Director Jose Luis Guerín has always been interested in Barcelona and here focuses on an isolated pocket of humanity located just outside the city in a valley called Vallbona that has mostly been overlooked by the authorities owing to historical and bureacratic happenstance. Vallbona is surrounded on one side by a river, on another side by a major highway, and on a third side by a railway. The people who have settled within this triangle are mostly outsiders who have built their own homes and live a subsistence existence when they aren’t commuting to the city for work. As the opening titles explain it, Vallbona developed as “people from the South arrived,” and by “south” he doesn’t just mean the south of Spain.

Guerín filmed for more than three years, during which the area underwent drastic changes due to new development that displaced many residents, forcing some to abandon their makeshift dwellings and move into state-run apartment complexes. In addition, many of the vegetable and flower gardens that had been attended by generations of immigrants were appropriated for the construction of a new railway passage. Guerín samples the multi-ethnic community in a manner so casual that it’s apparent some scenes were staged for their poignancy and aesthetic impact (an idyllic sequence showing residents enjoying a communal day at the canal is interrupted by shouts that “the cops are coming,” but after everyone flees only Guerín remains and no police show up). And while he shows effectively how disparate cultures can maintain their distinctive lifestyles while adapting to native mores and languages, he seems more interested in their mutual loss of a sense of place, mostly through the stories of the community’s elders, who have been here since the 40s when Franco’s shadow was still a threat. Certainly the most entertaining and edifying scenes are those in which these elders discuss everything from the French revolution to the delicacy of small-plot agriculture over good food and alcohol. Scripted? I wouldn’t be surprised, but I also wouldn’t change a thing.

In the end, Guerín seems to be saying, the world can’t be denied. The newest refugees are Russians and Ukrainians, united not only by a linguistic bond but by their sense of uprootedness on account of a war they could only escape. To them, Villbona is paradise, and not just because of the absence of daily strife. They seem to have stumbled upon it and in doing so believe they’ve won the lottery. 

The Love That Remains, in Icelandic and English, now playing in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Shinjuku Musashinokan (03-3354-5670), Yebisu Garden Cinema (0570-783-715).

Good Valley Stories, in Spanish, Catalan, Arabic, French, Portuguese, Russian, Hindi, and African dialects, now playing in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551).

The Love That Remains home page in Japanese

Good Valley Stories home page in Japanese

The Love That Remains photo (c) Still Vivid, Snowglobe, Hobab, Maneki Films, Film I Vast, Arte France Cinema

Good Valley Stories photo (c) 2025 Orfeo Iluso – Perspective Films – 3CAT – Los Ilusos Films – Los Films de Orfeo

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Review: Count Basie: Through His Own Eyes

Posted on July 2, 2026 by philipbrasor

This documentary purports to reveal a more intimate side of the legendary pianist and big band leader through “private correspondence and home movies” that, supposedly, have never been made public before. Most of these documents seem to consist of letters he wrote home from the road, notes he was making for a memoir, and genuine home movies. However, as the narration, spoken by actor Clarke Peters, says more than once, Basie was a man of few words who wasn’t fond of talking about himself, and these personal materials are actually much less revealing than the requisite talking head interviews, which in this case include noted jazz critics like Gary Giddins and Will Friedwald, former band members like John C. Williams and collaborators like Quincy Jones, as well as relatives and family friends. In the end, the only real new information I gleaned from the doc had to do with Basie’s daughter, Diane, who was born with cerebral palsy. 

The chronology is maddeningly inconsistent, often jumping from one timeframe to another in order to follow a theme and, in doing so, running over the same incidents (and using the same visuals) without adding anything fresh. Basie’s development as a pianist is shortchanged by the filmmakers. He goes from accompanying carnival acts and vaudeville productions in Red Hook, New Jersey, to hustling gigs in Harlem in the 1920s without any mention of how he got to that point professionally except to say that he greatly admired Fats Waller. And while Basie was an excellent stride pianist, it wasn’t what made him unique as an instrumentalist in the long run. More time is given over to the founding of his big band in Kansas City in the 30s and how he then brought that particular sound back east, where his reputation for “swinging the blues” made him more popular as a dance act than any other swing era ensemble The fact that he was not celebrated at the time with as much general fanfare as those other big bands was, of course, due to racism, a matter covered extensively throughout the film, as it should be, though Basie himself never complained that much being the kind of closed-off personality that he was. The doc finally comes into its own when it charts the band’s rise as a jazz institution in the 50s and 60s, mainly because of the available footage of the band and the man in action.

Occasionally, the narrative does get into areas that might have been ripe for their own dedicated documentaries, such as the Nazis’ secret obsession with African-American jazz or how the militant Black movement of the late 60s resented older successful artists like Basie for having made their peace, and their fortunes, with white patronage. If you know nothing about him, this is a good enough primer, especially about how influential his spare piano style and super syncopated rhythms were on all the jazz music that followed in his wake, but given how meticulous a professional William Basie was, the overall documentary is quite disheveled. 

Opens July 3 in Tokyo at Yebisu Garden Cinema (0570-783-715), Shinjuku Musashinokan (03-3354-5670). 

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photo (c) Eagle Rock Entertainment Ltd.

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Review: Gloaming in Luomo and Mothertongue

Posted on July 1, 2026 by philipbrasor

Korean-Chinese director Zhang Lu’s Gloaming in Luomu won the inaugural Busan Prize in the Competition section of last year’s Busan International Film Festival. Zhang, a mainstay at the festival for two decades, is a master of characterization and setting, though he’s a bit weak when it comes to plotting, even if fans will likely counter that storylines are not his main concern. His previous film, The Shadowless Tower, however, which delved into one man’s middle age dilemma in a wholly believable way, proved that he can fashion a solid narrative when he puts his mind to it. 

The protagonist of Gloaming is Bai (Bai Baihe), a former dancer who visits the titular tourist spot in Sichuan Province because a boyfriend who ghosted her 3 years ago once sent her a postcard from there. Bai spends a lot of time drinking with the natives and wandering around the leafy town, which is striated with lovely, pristine canals. Bai’s purpose for being there—her visit stretches out into what some would call a long residence—seems to shift from one conversation to another, with the town’s beautiful ambient light providing a kind of counterpart to her constantly changing mood. Though the viewer is meant to think that Bai is searching for her old lover, or, at least, trying to find out what happened to him, not much detective work is accomplished, and not just because she tends to get drunk before any plausible answers can be discovered. Most of Bai’s conversations are with another day drinker, Liu (Liu Dan), who’s more cynical than Bai though her love for her ineffectual husband seems to provide a measure of inspiration for the newcomer. 

The viewer will likely not share in this inspiration, mainly because so many scenes are repetitive and pointless. The slow rhythms point up Luomo’s attraction as a destination, which, in the end, may be the movie’s most salient selling point. It would be a great place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there unless you were an alcoholic.

Zhang’s even more recent film, Mothertongue, screened in the Competition section at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, where Zhang shared the Best Director prize with two other filmmakers. Bai again stars, this time as a struggling actor named Chunshu who manages to land a choice role in a major motion picture because the character she will be playing is from Chengdu, which is Chunshu’s hometown. However, when the producers learn that she has lost her facility with the local dialect in the years since she left, they drop her. Dejected, she returns to Chengdu to reconnect with her past, in particular the acting coach (Liu Dan again) who convinced her to lose her regional accent in the first place, telling her “only actors who speak standard Mandarin” can get work these days.

As with Gloaming, the purpose of Mothertongue seems mainly to be to promote its setting as a desirable tourist spot. Chengdu’s main claim to fame is the defunct Emei Film Studio, where many notable Chinese films of the past were made. Zhang was able to shoot the movie on the premises, which were abandoned and, by now, have probably been demolished, so the film has an intentionally marked sense of nostalgia. This sense is heightened by Liu’s retired acting coach, one of the few people who still live in the studio’s residential complex and who claims to be suffering from dementia, meaning she has forgotten much of the studio’s history, just as China has, Zhang suggests. 

Mothertongue feels more coherent that Gloaming in Luomo if only because Zhang seems more engaged in the things he’s showing. It’s a more personal movie, which, to an instinctive filmmaker like Zhang, means everything.

Gloaming in Luomo and Mothertongue, both in Mandarin, open July 3 in Tokyo at Cine Switch Ginza (03-3561-0707).

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