HOWLING

A mysterious adaptation of a short story by Hyakken Uchida (a Japanese modern author whose works have already been made into films, including by Akira Kurosawa), shot on 16mm, opening on a timeless image of a little boy who catches a big bee. The film cuts to an adult protagonist who goes to see the body of his little brother and finds his own face in that of the deceased. Memories and reality become confused – who do they belong to? – while additional characters populate nightmarish scenes filmed in desert megalopolises or equally abandoned woods. It is a surreal and slightly hypnotic film that plays with Japanese ghost stories, where the characters question whether they are alive or already on another plane of existence, reminiscent of the cinema of Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
“Reconsidering Jean-Paul Sartre’s words that ‘Existence precedes essence’ and reflecting on the existence of ourselves in the unpredictable and unstable current social situation.” (Aya Kawazoe)