Happyend
Director: Neo Sora Starring: Kurihara Hayato, Hidaka Yukito, Ayumu Nakajima, Makiko Watanabe, Shirō Sano. Running Time: 113 minutes
The senior prank, one of the great fascinations of American cinema. It feels rare to see these burning displays of late adolescence in other realms of global cinema, but Neo Sora’s (Ryuichi Sakamoto:Opus) debut retools those well worn senioritis japes for a tender drama set in near-future, near-fascist Japan with unfortunately timely results. As Tokyo anticipates a once in a lifetime earthquake (constantly reiterated by the Abe-esque prime minister eeking out every inch of power he can), childhood friend Kou and Yuta turn their school principal’s sports car to a perfect upright 90 degree angle with a forklift during an overnight stay as part of the school’s Music Research Club, and the school installs a state of the art AI surveillance system to combat ill behaviour.
What ensues is a canny yet playful coming of age story about radicalisation and the ways it intersects with class and race, which has a wonderfully natural cast of young actors at the helm. Equally comfortable placing the camera in the centre of a riot and a job interview, Sora’s direction is confident and assured, framing the stark, concrete architecture of Tokyo to underline the smallness of our protagonists as they try desperately to enjoy their youth in the face of an encroaching fascism.
(4 / 5)
Eight Postcards From Utopia
Director: Radu Jude, Christian Ferencz-Flatz Starring: A Wide Variety Of Romanian Commercial Actors Running Time: 71 minutes
Coming off his modern masterpiece Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World, which was present at last year’s edition of the festival and collaborating with philosopher Christian Ferencz-Flatz, ever productive Romanian satire master Radu Jude (who has already had 3 films premiere at other festivals since this one hit Locarno back in August) evokes the Cuban montage films of Santiago Alvarez with this essay film entirely made up of post-socialist Romanian television advertising. It recognises some horrifying societal id sitting at the core of all these cheaply produced local TV spots that articulate something about that transitional period for the country far better than a talking head documentary about it could.
In the first and longest of the film’s 8 sections, plainly divided by a title card of white Arial on plain black backgrounds, we chart a brief history of Romania through Pepsi commercials playing on ethnic origin to mobile phone networks building their punchlines around the downfall of Nicolae Ceaușes, before a boom and bust economy of dodgy investment opportunities for Dracula-based Transylvanian theme parks and the like. As the sections go on they reach for a wide picture of modern society, from money, to gender, to age, to alcoholism, it’s a really clever anthropological dig/editing exercise that is often hilarious and occasionally insightful. Jude’s trademark gallows humour comes through here without a word of original material, making for a tidy snack that left me very satisfied while I excitedly wait for his upcoming Kontinental ‘25 and Dracula to roll out of other festivals after their recent debuts.
(4.5 / 5)