Archive - 8th Five Flavours Film Festival
R100
Film description
A plain shop assistant, raising his son alone while his wife is lying in a hospital in a state of coma, sings up to Bondage club, which offers unusual erotic services. The contract lasts one year and cannot be terminated earlier under any circumstances. Black humor and absurd plot twists are a pretext for a critique of the Japanese censorship system, and an Orwellian analysis of the mechanisms of power. The portrayal of the sadomasochistic practices, which bring the protagonist pleasure (or maybe just relief), is at the same time funny and disturbing. The film, made in a gloomy retro aesthetic, resembles a refined comic book, eludes classification into any generic category.
Jagoda Murczyńska
Hitoshi Matsumoto
Director, publicist, showman, member of the extremely popular cabaret duo Downtown, which became the turning point in the history of comedy shows in Japan. His full-length feature debut, "Big Man Japan" – a pastiche of superhero movies – premiered in Cannes. Matsumoto's subsequent movies were shown at festivals in Rotterdam, Berlin, Pusan, Toronto, and Locarno; a retrospective of his works was held at Cinémathèque Française.
2007 Big Man Japa
2009 Shinboru / Symbol
2010 Saya-zamurai / Scabbard Samurai
2013 R100