The Family Game
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Polish premiereTheatrical Screenings
Kinoteka 1
Kinoteka 1
Film description
A middle-class family in Tokyo lives according to the prevailing social order: the father is fixated on career advancement, the mother is concerned with appearances, the elder son is the model of filial virtue, while the younger must catch up. To improve his grades, the parents hire a private tutor. Instead of harmony, however, disruption ensues – the teacher becomes a catalyst for chaos, exposing the emptiness of rituals and the absurdity of educational pressure.
In his renowned psychodrama, Yoshimitsu Morita captured with precision the atmosphere of 1980s Japan – a decade of prosperity, emerging class aspirations, and social pressure to subordinate one’s entire life to the ideal of success. Behind the glass façade of the family home, around a dining table that is little more than a stage prop, the director dissects the family as an institution in a world where education breeds conformity and success becomes the only currency. “The Family Game” is a cult film, hailed by Kinema Junpo as the best work of the decade, and remains a touchstone for cinema, critically examining the family within Japanese society. It is a satire that has lost none of its relevance: as sharp, funny, and bitter today as at its premiere – formative, not without reason, for a later generation of cinematic humanists.
The film will be screened in a restored 4K version.
text:
Łukasz Mańkowski
Yoshimitsu Morita
Yoshimitsu Morita was one of the most perceptive observers of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century – a director with a unique sensitivity who was equally adept at creating satires, thrillers, pinku eiga, and moving dramas about the human condition. Self-taught and experimental, raised on Western cinema and literature, he became one of the key creators searching for a new sensibility, who in the 1980s captured the spirit of postmodern Japan – a world of rapid modernization, alienation, and emotional chaos. His most famous film, The Family Game , is an ironic and brilliant portrait of the Japanese middle class, still considered one of the most accurate studies of family relationships in the history of cinema. Morita combined cool social observation with absurd humor with remarkable ease, creating works that were both insightful and deeply humanistic. His cinema, though rooted in everyday life, always questioned the meaning of community, empathy, and emotional closeness in a world increasingly dominated by conformism.
1981 No Yōna Mono / Something Like It
1982 Shibugakitai Boys & Girls / Come On Girls!
1983 Familiada / Kazoku Gēmu / The Family Game
1985 Sorekara / And Then
1986 Sorobanzuku / Sorobanzuku
1988 Kanashi Iro Yanen / Kanashi Iro Yanen
1989 Kitchen / Kitchen
1996 Haru / Haru
1997 Shitsurakuen / A Lost Paradise
1999 Kuroi Ie / The Black House
2002 Mohōhan / Copycat Killer
2003 Ashura no Gotoku / Like Asura
2006 Mamiya Kyōdai / The Mamiya Brothers
2007 Sanjuro / Sanjuro
2010 Bushi no Kakeibo / Abacus and Sword
2012 Bokutachi Kyūkō: A Ressha de Ikō / Take the “A” Train
