KONTORA

A Hypnotic Tale of Wartime Loot and Walking Backwards

Venue(s): Uplink Kichijoji
TBA
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Official website: www.kowatanda.com/kontora-theaters
Theater website: joji.uplink.co.jp/movie/2021/8451
Theater website: joji.uplink.co.jp/movie
Theater website: joji.uplink.co.jp/map
Tariff: Adults: ¥1,900 / Students: ¥1,000 - ¥1,000 / Seniors: ¥1,200
Advance tickets: Visit theatre site for details.

Title: コントラ KONTORA (Kontora)
Director: Anshul Chauhan (アンシュル・チョウハン)
Duration: 143 min

If you’ve been following recent Japanese cinema, you’ve already seen Anshul Chauhan’s dark, disturbing, award-winning feature debut, Bad Poetry Tokyo. His follow-up is an even more impressive accomplishment. Before its English-subbed release in Tokyo, Kontora (a Japanized pronunciation of “contra”) spent a year on the international festival circuit, scooping up the Grand Prize at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) in late 2019, Best Film at the 2020 Skip City International D-Cinema Festival, Best Actor (for Hidemasa Mase) at the 2020 Osaka Asian Film Festival, and the inaugural Obayashi Prize at New York City’s Japan Cuts in 2020.

Whether the recognition heralds the dawn of a new era for multicultural voices in the domestic film industry is debatable, but Kontora manages to be Japan-specific and universal at the same time, with a directorial vision that feels both authentic and utterly unique. Chauhan, whose earlier career was spent as an animator, shot Kontora in just 10 days with gifted Estonian cinematographer Maxim Golomidov, who also lensed Bad Poetry Tokyo.

The haunting black-and-white film is both a richly layered family drama and an allegorical depiction of the inextricable ties binding our past to our present. And it features one of the oddest, most memorable characters in recent cinema.

Kontora tells the story of Sora (Wan Marui), a rebellious high schooler who lives in the countryside with her boozy, widowed father (Taichi Yamada) and beloved grandfather. When the latter dies, Sora discovers his WWII journal, which contains his vivid recollections of the horrors of war (the quotes are from real letters written by young Japanese soldiers). It also contains hints that there is treasure buried in the nearby forest, and Sora becomes obsessed with finding it.

On one of her scouting trips, she comes across a strange homeless man (Mase) walking backwards into town. When his aimless journey is violently interrupted that night, Sora insists on helping him. But the enigmatic stranger is mute and otherwise otherworldly. As her obsession with the buried treasure comingles with her interest in the peculiar man, her fractious relationship with her father begins to shatter.

Uplink Kichijoji

 

 

Venue: Uplink Kichijoji
April 30 (Fri) - May 13 (Thu), 2021
Official website: www.kowatanda.com/kontora-theaters
Theater website: joji.uplink.co.jp/movie/2021/8451