Lost Girls and Love Hotels. (18.)
Directed by Willliam Olsson.
Starring Alexandra Daddario, Takehiro Hira, Carice van Houten, Andrew Rothney, Misuzu Kanno and Kate Easton. Out on DVD and VOD February 8th. 93 mins.
Margaret (Daddario) wants to meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture and have rough sex with them. An English teacher in Japan, she throws herself into partying and at any Japanese man who looks like he has yen enough to pay for a few hours in a love hotel. Then she meets softly spoken, mild-mannered yakuza Kazu (Hira, from Giri/Haji.)
Adapted by Catherine Hanrahan from her novel, the film version is beautifully shot by Kenji Katori and has a really strong sense of the thrill of being a stranger in a foreign city and the random intensity of ex-pat friendship: Margaret spends her evenings getting drunk with Liam (Rothney) and Ines (Van Houten.) Daddario's not always a convincing drunk but her performance often touches genuine depths of despair and a desire for debasement and self-negation. The film isn't as committed as her performance and as an erotic drama, it is timid. Gasper Noe's Enter The Void offers a far more graphic vision of Japan's underbelly as a setting in which lost Americans can work through their emotional issues.
Directed by Willliam Olsson.
Starring Alexandra Daddario, Takehiro Hira, Carice van Houten, Andrew Rothney, Misuzu Kanno and Kate Easton. Out on DVD and VOD February 8th. 93 mins.
Margaret (Daddario) wants to meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture and have rough sex with them. An English teacher in Japan, she throws herself into partying and at any Japanese man who looks like he has yen enough to pay for a few hours in a love hotel. Then she meets softly spoken, mild-mannered yakuza Kazu (Hira, from Giri/Haji.)
Adapted by Catherine Hanrahan from her novel, the film version is beautifully shot by Kenji Katori and has a really strong sense of the thrill of being a stranger in a foreign city and the random intensity of ex-pat friendship: Margaret spends her evenings getting drunk with Liam (Rothney) and Ines (Van Houten.) Daddario's not always a convincing drunk but her performance often touches genuine depths of despair and a desire for debasement and self-negation. The film isn't as committed as her performance and as an erotic drama, it is timid. Gasper Noe's Enter The Void offers a far more graphic vision of Japan's underbelly as a setting in which lost Americans can work through their emotional issues.
