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Directed by Toshiaki Toyoda | 60 minutes | Unrated |
11:00am Sunday, 1 Jun | Estonian House | Buy Tickets | Buy Passes
CAN YOU SEE THE LIGHT THAT’S PIERCING YOUR HEART?
The latest from Japanese cult writer/director Toshiaki Toyoda (The Day of Destruction, Blue Spring, Pornostar) is both meditation and freak-out — an omnibus of Toyoda’s short films Alive (2022), I'm Here (2023), and I’m Coming (2024), all starring Kiyohiko Shibukawa as a searching spiritualist besieged on all sides, inside and out, until he finds peace. Horns blare, a guitar screeches, water rushes, a body stands defiant.
Matching gorgeous natural scenery with an intensely expressive lead performance, this trilogy captures the journey of blind anger en route towards something like focused rage and maybe transcendence. No other movie in the program evokes the turmoil of trying to calm down in a hurry or the catharsis of fully releasing the weight from one’s shoulders.
SIMILAR: Tsai Ming-Liang’s Walker series, Running on Karma (2003), Memoria
“On searching for purpose with teeth bared … I thought about my life and all the things I could do better” - Kai Perrignon, BUFF Head Programmer
“Toshiaki Toyoda is one of the gods of cinema” - Felix Hubble, BUFF Festival Director
Country: Japan
Year: 2022 - 2024
Language: Japanese