Toronto Japanese Film Festival at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (6 Garamond) from Thursday (June 9) to June 23. jccc.on.ca/tjff. Rating: NNNN
A streak of sorrow runs through the Toronto Japanese Film Festival in its fifth year, with a trio of titles that sift through the lessons and legacy of the Second World War.
Three of TJFF 2016’s biggest titles were released in Japan last year to coincide with the 60th anniversary of Japan’s surrender to the Allies. They’ve only now made it to the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre for their first Canadian screenings.
Yoji Yamada’s Nagasaki: Memories Of My Son opens the festival (Thursday, June 9, 7:30 pm). The drama follows a woman (Sayuri Noshinaga) who lost her adult son (Kazunari Ninomiya) in the atomic bombing, only to see him return to her three years later as a gentle spectre. It’s a calm, distinctly spiritual consideration of the Japanese spirit after the war, and if the very last beat doesn’t quite work, it doesn’t erase the grace of what’s come before.
Persona Non Grata (Sunday, June 12, 7 pm) is being packaged as the Japanese Schindler’s List, the story of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania who issued transit visas for some 6,000 Jewish refugees at considerable personal risk. But it’s dull, expository drama – not art or cinema, but a non-threatening international co-production.
Far more successful at recreating history is The Emperor In August (Saturday, June 11, 7 pm), Masato Harada’s thoughtful drama about the eve of Japan’s capitulation, when army minister Korechika Anami (Koji Yakusho) and Emperor Showa (Masahiro Motoki) had to find a way to surrender to the Allies that wouldn’t trigger civil war.
This is not to suggest the entire festival is sombre. There’s also Bitter Honey (June 17, 7 pm), a frankly uncategorizable love story about a young woman (Fumi Nikaido) with a mystical secret who becomes the lover and muse of a much older author (Ren Osugi). There’s sex and magic and eroticism and a goldfish, which is something you can’t say about any other movie on the program.
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
