BEFORE WE VANISH (Kiyoshi Kurosawa 2017) - NYFF

[Chris Knipp]

Fine the entire review in the Festival Coverage section for the 2017 NYFF Main Slate. But it comes out in US theaters this Friday, Feb. 2, 2018.

KIYOSHI KUROSAWA: BEFORE WE VANISH (2017)


RYUHEI MATSUDA AND MASAMI NAGASAWA, CENTER, IN BEFORE WE VANISH

Dream deferred, love affirmed

Kiiyoshi Kurosawa is best known for his superb modern horror films, especially his 1997 Cure and 2000 Pulse. Reviewing the good but not quite so good one made in between, the ironically titled Bright Future , I wrote "Kurosawa like no other living director creates his own haunting and disturbing moods." He took a successful turn toward a more conventional family drama about a man ashamed of being out of work with his 2008 Tokyo Sonata. But in 2012 he came home in a new format, with a drawn-out but absorbing horror miniseries, "Penance" about murder and schoolgirls; its five episodes were shown in theaters and on Japanese TV; you can watch it online. Things have been uneven since then, as can happen with the prolific. Two overlong movies, Journey to the Shore and Daguerreotype (with Tahar Rahim, Olivier Gourmet, Mathieu Amalric, and Malik Zidi, all wasted, which I couldn't finish), came out in 2015 and 2016. But in between was the successful and more typical Creepy.

Well, this new one, based on a play (by Tomohiro Maekawa), is in between the two. It meanders too much, and doesn't seem to know how to grab us and hold us and move toward a climax. It's overlong too. But it's fun to watch, even amid cheesy special effects, Kurosawa's mastery of odd atmosphere, his way with young characters. One settles in comfortably for the work of a real pro, and winds up with a mystical and meditative work that plays with Eighties sci-fi.

Click here to see the rest of the review in the Festival coverage section.