Yamabuki

Premiered in the official section of the last Rotterdam Festival, Yamabuki is important for two reasons. The first, for being the definitive consecration of its director, the unclassifiable Juichiro Yamasaki. The second, perhaps more important for anyone who comes to this film, is that it is one of the great cinematic events of the season. Starting out from the makings of the costumbrista drama and the well-trodden narrative framework of cross-stories, Yamabuki undertakes a fascinating exploration of emotional and family ties, guilt and redemption, the accepted and the marginalized. Through the stories of a Korean immigrant and a high school student in a small Japanese town, the narrative reveals a series of undercurrents that give it a critical edge and political bite unusual in Japanese cinema today. Nevertheless, despite offering an unkind portrait of the social consensus on which contemporary Japan is built, and touching on taboos such as corruption and the treatment of immigration, Yamabuki does not lose his serene view of the conflicts he raises, nor his empathy for his characters. Shot in glorious 16mm, Yamabuki is a prodigy of sensitivity, aesthetic beauty and narrative power, qualities that explode in its brilliant final stretch, full of mystery and genuine audiovisual poetry. GABRIEL DOMÉNECH