BONELESS LANTERN

Loss and Rebirth at the Thousand Lantern Festival

Venue(s): Tokyo Photographic Art Museum
June 3 (Tue), 2025 to June 22 (Sun), 2025
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Official website: honenashi.com/
Theater website: topmuseum.jp/e/contents/exhibition/movie-5149.html
Theater website: topmuseum.jp/e/contents/pages/access_index.html
Trailer: https://bit.ly/4l47Mqi
Tariff: Please check on the theater site.
Advance tickets: Please check on the theater site.
Talk event: Please check on the theater site.

Title: 骨なし灯籠 (honenashi toro)
Director: Nadeshiko Koba (木庭撫子)
Duration: 108min

Nadeshiko Koba’s debut film was inspired by the traditional lanterns crafted for over 500 years in the hot spring town of Yamaga, Kumamoto. Celebrated in the famed Lantern Festival every summer, in which 1,000 women dance with them on their heads, the gorgeous lanterns are called “boneless” because they are made only from paper. Koba’s beautifully lensed Boneless Lantern can now be seen with English subtitles.

The film follows the existential journey of former art teacher Yusuke Ichii (Satoshi Suitsu), who has lost his beloved wife Yukari, and begun wandering around with her urn in his hands, looking for a suitable place to die. In Yamaga, he sees a poster for the festival featuring a woman with an uncanny resemblance to Yukari, and fascinated by the craft of creating the lanterns, begins working in a lantern shop run by the goofy apprentic Naoki (Yohei Takayama).

At the same time, strange phenomena begin to occur — shadows that should be invisible, whispers that should be inaudible, and lanterns that move as if being guided by someone. The unsettling atmosphere that lurks in the everyday scenery gradually draws Yusuke toward a certain truth.

Tokyo Photographic Art Museum