JAPANESE FESTIVAL REVIEW: THE TOKYO NIGHT SKY IS ALWAYS THE DENSEST SHADE OF BLUE
8/10 In a city of 10 million people Mika and Shinji keep on stumbling into each other. Is it fate or one of the meaningless coincidences of life? Mika is suffering from internal pain over the suicide of her mother and is obsessed with death. Shinji can barely see with his left eye and it gives him the impression that he can only see and discover half of the world. Can these two “damaged”people make each other complete? Director Yuya Ishii has based this movie on a poem, telling the story of two different people who do not belong anywhere. The film is a vivid portrait of modern Tokyo, it is shown as a place of isolation, where even in the midst of a crowd, one’s individuality dissolves. For the characters of the film it is both a terrifying and a liberating feeling. During Q&A Ishii said that the first focus while working on the film was the sound, which is crucial to his work. In TOKYO images come first. They naturally transition into one another, and the short animat