Capital Celluloid 2013 - Day 36: Tue Feb 5

The Blossoming of Etsuko Kamiya (Kuroki, 2006): ICA Cinema, 9pm

The Once Upon a Time in Japan season at the ICA examines the country’s past through the eyes of contemporary filmmakers such as Koreeda and Takashi Miike. Characterising a trend in recent Japanese cinema, this year’s programme showcases a series of works by both emerging and established filmmakers whose aim is to reinterpret, reinvent or relive moments of times past.
Through a variety of genres, styles and tones, from horror, drama, action to animation, this programme aims to give UK audiences the broadest and most colourful insight into Japan’s history than any of our past Japan film seasons, and explore how the past has been brought to life through the eyes of contemporary filmmakers.

Here is the ICA introduction to tonight's film: Etsuko Kamiya (Tomoyo Harada) is a country girl expecting to marry in the coming years. Despite her sibling’s efforts to find her a suitor in army engineer Nagayo (Masatoshi Nagase), Etsuko’s true love is left for Nagoya’s friend Akashi (Shunsuke Matsuoka), a young military man who has been conscripted to be a kamikaze pilot. A tragic yet quaint love story set in Kagoshima as the Second World War drew to a close, this film, based on a stage play by Masataka Matsuda, is Kazuo Kuroki’s final work before his death in 2006 and like many of Kuroki’s works, concerns the trauma and unalterable influence of the Second World War of those who lived through it.