A few years ago I saw a film called Love Exposure by Japanese Director Sion Sono. I’ve seen that film
three times now and even though it is over four hours long it has become one of
my all time favourites. I’d been on the look out for other films from the
Director and came across Himizu, a
film set in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake that caused the Tsunami and Fukushima nuclear
disaster.
A fourteen year old boy runs a boat renting business. He is
surrounded by an unusual bunch of adult friends who live vagrant lives near his
house having been made homeless by the earthquake. With an absent mother and
mostly absent and violent father, the boy has constant thoughts of suicide. A
girl from his school becomes infatuated with him and attempts to bring his life
into focus but struggles against the boy’s violence and depression.
