POOLSIDEMAN
Another View 2017 / Pûrusaido man / Japan 2016
Yusuke Mizuhara is a taciturn lifeguard living out his monotonous life in a suburb north of Tokyo between home and a forgotten pool. What’s behind the impenetrable façade of a young man confronted daily by reports of the tragedies plaguing different parts of the world? A formally ambitious, geometrically precise film about certain unexplained thought processes associated with the Japanese mentality.
Synopsis
Contemporary, low-cost, independent production from the Land of the Rising Sun actively struggles with a difficulty that has been plaguing it long-term – a certain isolation, a lack of communication with analogous tendencies in film culture happening in the rest of the world. Hirobumi Watanabe, one of Japan’s most exciting young filmmakers, is succeeding through style and in his manner of developing a story. His third film presents pool man Yusuke Mizuhara, a loner of few words whose monotonous life plays out in a suburb north of Tokyo between home and a nearly-deserted pool. His stoic expression knows no variance, not even under the deluge of words streaming from his somewhat overbearing coworker Koji. What’s behind the impenetrable façade worn by a young man confronted daily by reports of the tragedies besetting different parts of the world? A formally ambitious, geometrically precise film about certain unexplained thought processes associated with the Japanese mentality.
Karel Och
About the film
117 min / Black & white, DCP
European premiere
Director Hirobumi Watanabe
/ Screenplay Hirobumi Watanabe
/ Dir. of Photography Woohyun Bang
/ Music Yuji Watanabe
/ Editor Hirobumi Watanabe
/ Producer Hideki Watanabe, Akemi Watanabe
/ Production Foolish Piggies Films
/ Cast Gaku Imamura, Hirobumi Watanabe, Misao Hirayama, Takanori Kurosaki
/ Sales ARTicle Films
About the director
Hirobumi Watanabe (b. 1982) is a graduate of the Japan Institute of the Moving Image. In 2013 he and his brother Yuji, a composer of movie music, founded Foolish Piggies Films productions. His first two films, And the Mud Ship Sails Away (2013) and 7 Days (2015), played the Tokyo IFF and other festivals.
Contacts
ARTicle Films
Nishishinjyuku 4-14-1-702, , Shinjyuku-ku Tokyo
Japan
Phone: +81 906 665 1129
E-mail: emi@articlefilms.com
Guests
Hirobumi Watanabe
Film Director
Yuji Watanabe
Producer
Emi Ueyama
Sales Agent
Woohyun Bang
Director of Photography
