RYUSUKE HAMAGUCHI SPECIAL 2024

A Mini-Retrospective Before Evil Begins

Venue: Cinema K2 Shimokitazawa
From April 19, 2024 to April 25, 2024
Official website: k2-cinema.com/
Theater website: k2-cinema.com/event
Theater website: k2-cinema.com/access

Advance tickets: https://k2-cinema.com/en/purchase.pdf
Talk event: NA

Title: 濱口竜介監督特集 (Hamaguchi Ryusuke Kantoku Tokushu)
Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi (濱口竜介)

Shimokitazawa’s K2 cinema is once again paying tribute to acclaimed director Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) ahead of the Japan opening of his latest award-winning opus, Evil Does Not Exist, on April 26. While there are other titles in the tribute sans subs, it does include English-subtitled screenings of Hamaguchi’s 2008 graduation film, Passion, along with three nonfiction films (codirected with Ko Sakai) about the aftermath of the 3/11 Fukushima triple disaster, known as the Tohoku Trilogy: The Sound of Waves, Voices from the Waves and Storytellers. Here’s your chance to revisit the auteur’s early works and ongoing concerns.

PASSION
Dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
2008 115 min.

Passion announced Hamaguchi’s arrival in 2008 when his graduation film from Tokyo University of the Arts was invited to the San Sebastian International Film Festival and Tokyo Filmex. Directed and written by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, it follows the tumultuous journey of a young couple, engaged to be married, when they gather with friends and are confronted by unexpected revelations. Starring Aoba Kawai and indie darling Kiyohiko Shibukawa (who would appear in later Hamaguchi films, including the 2021 The Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy), the narrative explores the intertwined lives of the protagonists and their companions, and nails the complexities of romantic relationships. Like the director’s later works, themes of betrayal and metaphysical connection are prominent.

The Sound of Waves なみのおと
Dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
2012 144 min.

Hamaguchi’s nonfiction work explores other themes. Following the 3/11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown, he journeyed with his former classmate at Tokyo University of the Arts, Ko Sakai, to Tohoku as part of a project to document the stories of the survivors, and decided they didn’t want to just shoot the usual talking heads as part of director-led interviews. Instead, the first two documentaries, The Sound of Waves (2011) and Voices from the Waves (2013), bring pairs of people together in conversation with each other — friends, family members, survivors — rather than with an interviewer. Shooting them head on, facing the camera directly, allows these pairs to feel more comfortable and to chat at their own pace. While it creates the sense that we’re eavesdropping on them at first, it gradually pulls us in, since their sense of intimacy is palpable.

Voices from the Waves なみのこえ
Dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
2013 115 min.

Storytellers (2013), the last of the trilogy, takes a different approach by highlighting the oral traditions in the Tohoku region, focusing on how locals have passed down their folktales for generations. Not surprisingly, their themes often resonate with the recent tragedy. The filmmakers, searching for ways to share experiences of the disaster with future generations, focus on folk storytellers Ito Masako, Sasaki Ken and Sato Reiko, along with folklore scholar Ono Kazuko, founder of Miyagi Minwa no Kai, who acts as the interviewer. They tell a series of mukashi banashi (folk tales of rural life often featuring talking animals), many of them fantastic and outlandish. Through them, the film explores how a single event may live a thousand lives through the act of telling, and how different storytelling voices can render that event in similar yet unique ways.

Storytellers うたうひと
Dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
2013 120 min.

Cinema K2: Shimokita Ekimae Cinema