CLOUD

Following its August world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival (where he’d won a Silver Bear in 2021 for directing Wife of a Spy), cinema airwaves were flooded with reviews proclaiming Cloud a “return to form” for the auteur. That may be because it begins in a rather subdued manner before gradually building to an explosion of pent-up anger and violence, and there are elements of horror and a damning critique of online capitalism. Whatever it is, you’ll find plenty to be thrilled about.

Cloud opens with our introduction to Yoshii (Masaki Suda), who works in a small factory but makes most of his money, under the alias “Ratel,” flipping goods on the internet. He doesn’t know or care if the goods are counterfeit, he finds them for cheap, puts them on his website with misleading descriptions, and makes a killing. But the folks he’s ripping off aren’t quite as sanguine about the situation as he hopes.

After Yoshii loses his job when the factory closes and he decides to move to the countryside with his girlfriend Akiko (Kotone Furukawa), the story begins to shift. He hires a local youth with a mysterious past, and what feels like a chilling suspense thriller at first assumes an even more charged atmosphere, with some unexpected twists and turns and finally, a vivid explosion of animosity.