Now Showing Oct 13

Starting with the buzz at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival, ‘A Single Man’ is a film that has been generating incredible excitement at film festivals around the world. It’s the exceptional sensitivity and style with which the film is depicted that has led to such critical acclaim, despite it being the director’s first film. That new director is a man who is already a charismatic presence in the fashion world: Tom Ford. Ford is the man who, as creative director, miraculously turned Gucci and Yves Saint-Laurent from established but lifeless brands into the powerful names we know today, and then went on to create his own successful eponymous brand.

Colin Firth plays the lead role of George. Eight months have passed since George lost his partner of 16 years in a car accident. Tortured by feelings of loneliness and sadness which deepen day by day, he decides to take his own life. But knowing that today is his last, the way George sees that the world begins to change little by little. At work he gives an enthusiastic university lecture, and when he is talking with the jaded young girl who lives next door, a smile naturally comes to his face. With his suicide note in one hand, he visits his former girlfriend Charley, and while he finds himself at the mercy of her whims, he is nevertheless comforted by the company of his ever self-absorbed friend. Up until this point George has been living in the past, but we begin to see a glimmer of light in his eyes.

From the very opening scene of the film, we are treated to a series of mesmerisingly beautiful images. From the actors’ outfits to each piece of furniture, it is incredibly stylish. It’s as if the perfect balance of colour, tone, light and shadow has been calculated for each frame. Perhaps there is a tendency to focus only on those kinds of elements because a fashion designer directed the film, but in the slow motion images of the car accident, or in the collages of the smiling faces of Georges’ friends, we can see superb direction which truly makes us feel the protagonist’s sense of loss. Colin Firth, who plays the lead role of George, and Julianne Moore, who plays his close friend and ex-girlfriend Charley are two of Hollywood’s leading stars. Both give wonderful performances, from expressing the deep feelings of grief brought about by loneliness and anxiety, which can’t be put into simple words, to their portrayal of the happiness that slowly appears in their lives.

The isolation and sense of loss that people live with in modern times, the sense of emptiness, which can’t be buried in material things; perhaps in ‘A Single Man’ you can find an idea of how to overcome these very contemporary – and very common – feelings.

A Single Man

USA, 2009
Opened: Oct 2
Director/Producer/Writer: Tom Ford
Cast: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode, Nicholas Hoult, Jon Kortajarena
Distributor: Gaga
Website: singleman.gaga.ne.jp/

Ohoku

This film is set in an alternate Edo Japan, during the Tokugawa Era, where there is a mysterious epidemic that only attacks men. It’s a period film with a twist: with the dwindling numbers of men, the shogun is now a woman, and she has an entourage of 3,000 beautiful men serving her in the inner palace, or ohoku, where no other women are admitted. With the ohoku a harem full of beautiful men, it becomes a sea of ambitions, sorrow, jealousy, scheming and also love. Based on the comic by Fumi Yoshinaga, which won the 13th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize, and produced by the team that made ‘Kisarazu Cat’s Eye’ and ‘Ame Agaru’ (‘After the Rain’), it’s a historical tale like no other.

Japan, 2010
Opened: Oct 1
Director: Fuminori Kaneko
Cast: Kazunori Ninomiya, Kou Shibasaki, Maki Horikita, Todadyoshi Ookura, Aoi Nakamura, Hiroshi Tamaki (special appearance), Mitsuko Baishou, Muga Takewai, Emi Wakui, Sadao Abe, Kuranosuke Sasaki
Distributor: Matsutake Shochiku/Asmik Ace
Website: ohoku.jp/

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole

This film is a tale of adventure and struggle set in a world of owls, based on Kathryn Lasky’s series of fantasy books, ‘Guardians of Ga’Hoole.’ It’s the first time for director Zack Snyder (of ‘300’ and ‘Watchmen’ fame) to make an animated film. The story of the young owls – who are fighting to save their kingdom from an evil organization plotting world conquest – is painted on a grand scale. Seen in 3D, the textures of the owls and the scenes where they are soaring through the heavens, are breathtaking.

Australia/USA, 2010
Japanese title: Gafuru no Densetsu
Opened: Oct 1
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Jim Sturgess, Ryan Kwanten, Abbie Cornish, Helen Mirren, Hugo Weaving, Geoffrey Rush, Sam Neill
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Website: www.gahoole.jp/

Soup Opera

Based on the novel of the same name by Sawako Agawa, this eccentric, heart-warming drama tells the story of a 35 year-old woman who, through a strange series of events, ends up living with two men. Maki Sakai, who has been choosing more and more challenging roles in recent years, plays the lead. Tatsuya Fuji plays Tony, the peculiar, almost elderly painter, and Takahiro Nishijima is the always-smiling apprentice magazine editor Kosuke. The series of amazing meals that are cooked up in the film are also definitely worth seeing.

Japan, 2010
Opened: Oct 2
Director: Tomoyuki Takimoto
Cast: Maki Sakai, Takahiro Nishijima, Tatsuya Fuji, Mariko Kaga, Sei Hiraizumi, Masato Hagiwara, Sawa Suzuki, Ryousei Tayama
Distributor: Prénom H Co Ltd
Website: www.soup-opera.jp/