Third Window Films is one of our favorite distributors and one of the only labels concentrating on Japanese films that don't feature lots of gunfire or ghosts with long black hair. Himizu is the latest in a line of films from Sion Sono taken up by TWF, which bodes well for that film. The film's UK premiere is scheduled to take place during the Terracotta Far East Film Festival 2012 from April 12-15, followed by a UK theatrical run beginning in late April. Here's how the film was described by TIFF:
A rare film that evokes our present-day atmosphere with surprising immediacy. The story of a boy and a girl who are confronted with a horrific personal reality against the backdrop of the devastation caused by this year's earthquake in Japan. An adaptation of Minoru Furuya's successful manga of the same name, Himizu is the latest film by Sion Sono, the Japanese master of extreme filmmaking.The other film coming next year from Third Window is Yuya Ishii's Mitsuko Delivers, a comic drama much like Sawako Decides. According to Third Window head, Adam Torel, Mitsuko Delivers outshines Sawako Decides, so that is extremely promising. Mitsuko Delivers is tentatively scheduled for theatrical release in the UK in mid-May. Here's what Tony Rayns had to say about the film for the London Film Festival:
These acquisitions continue the careful curation of one the finest Asian film labels in the western world. In addition to these, fans can look forward to Adrift in Tokyo from Miki Satoshi in the next month on DVD. Also, these pages will very soon have a review of Quirky Guys and Gals on DVD and hopefully Underwater Love on DVD as well.Mitsuko is in her ninth month of pregnancy. Her parents (serial failed entrepreneurs) think that she's in California with the baby's GI father, and she's happy to leave them in ignorance. But she's actually back in Tokyo, broke and friendless. So she has her flat cleared, gets into a taxi she can't pay for, and follows a cloud back to the little working-class alley where she grew up. The place is pretty run-down and depressed these days, but Mitsuko's can-do, bull-in-a-china-shop attitude soon shakes everyone up. There's much to be done. The little diner needs more customers, the alley's elderly woman owner needs carers, the tongue-tied man who could never propose to the widow in the coffee-shop needs a push... So much to do, so little time before Mitsuko goes into labour. Yuya Ishii follows Sawako Decides with another breathless comic drama about a girl asserting herself when all around her are floundering. You could take the whole thing as a lacerating satire of the pickled nostalgia and homey working-class stereotypes of Shochiku's old Tora-san series, but Ishii gives it a brio and originality which transcend satire. It's a blast.
If I am allowed to editorialize for a moment, Third Window Films is one of many independent British video distributors heavily impacted by the fire at the Sony plant during last summer's London riots. They could really use your help! If you enjoy the kind of films that Third Window offers, please vote with your dollars! Many of their titles will go up a couple of pounds in the new year, so this next month is a great chance to fill some holes in your collection. It will also go a long way toward keeping Third Window around to do the work that we all appreciate so much. This goes for other labels as well, such as Terracotta, BFI, Eureka!, Arrow, Peccadillo, and many, many more.
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