The Lost Generation

Sway (2006) - Nishikawa Miwa Nishikawa (Dear Doctor, Under the Open Sky), a pupil of the great Hirokazu Kore-eda, proves herself to be a fine writer and director in her debut feature with Sway. One could make a comparison between Sway and Rysuke Hamaguchi's recent Evil Does Not Exist. But while I find the city/country dichotomy a little unsubtle and naive in Hamaguchi's latest, Sway examines it with much more nuance.

Takeru Hayakawa (Joe Odagiri), a hip photographer in Tokyo, goes back to a small rural town to attend his mom's funeral. He confronts his gas station owning father and his older brother Minoru (great character actor Teruyuki Kagawa). It seems Takeru was the one who got away from drabby small town living and Minoru, always a mediator, remained and has been taking care of things, like working at the gas station. There is Chieko (Yoko Maki), a childhood sweetheart, who now works for the gas station too - after the economic downturn cost her her job, a couple of years prior. It is also clear that Minoru has feelings for her. After the funeral and all the blame game and awkward exchanges, Takeru and Chieko spend the night together. There are a lot of unsaid yearnings in her looks toward Takeru which he is oblivious to or doesn't care enough about. He just wants to get back to his life in Tokyo. Next day, by the urging of Minoru, the three of them go to the picturesque gorge with a swaying drawbridge across. It's the Hayakawa family picnic spot which their father often took the brothers to when they were young. After a confrontation on the draw bridge between Minoru and Chieko, she falls to the water and drowns. The rest of the movie is mostly a courtroom drama where the family dynamics were examined.

The film presents the deep chasm that can't be bridged between the generations in Japanese society amid the crippling economic downturn. Minoru's confession to the cops, originates from the mixture of envy, humiliation and resignation for meaningless life in the boring rural life as a gas station attendant, still living under the old school patriarchy. But Nishikawa shows that his envy of Takeru's success in the city is also misplaced, since Takeru's life is just as meaningless in superficial surroundings - a cool vintage car, a leather jacket, lots of one night stands. Nishikawa makes a subtle point to have Takeru's car break down near the end of the movie.

Nishikawa presents a snapshot of a Japanese society in mid-2000: one escapes the old school patriarchy to a meaningless life in superficiality. The other, full of envy and resentment, still trying to appease the old generation and living in a self-imposed prison. Odagiri and Kagawa are both terrific in their roles.

Hare to the Throne

Starve Acre (2023) - Kokotajlo Parents' grief manifests into a supernatural horror in Daniel Kokotajlo's moody, slow burn Starve Acre, based on a book by Andrew Michael Hurley who also co-wrote the screenplay.

Richard (Matt Smith) has moved back to his father's estate with his family - his wife Juliette (Morfydd Clark of Saint Maude) and their young son Ewan. He is a lecturer of archeology in nearby university. With his long hair and an outsider status, Richard doesn't really get along with his colleagues and neither does Ewan, who demonstrates violent tendencies. Jules is worried about their child but Richard is not. Richard's distance from his family stems from the physical abuse he received from his father when he was a young boy. He chastises his neighbor Gordon for telling the boy about the local folktale of Jack Grey and an oak tree that can reanimate the dead. Country folks are backward and full of superstitions. But the family can't shake off the feeling that there is something spooky about the nature that surrounds their house.

Ewan suddenly dies from an asthma attack and it pulls Richard and Jules farther apart. Guilt stricken and grieving, Jules can hardly get out of bed and Richard spends much time alone digging through the mud in the yard. Harrie (Erin Richards), Juliette's sister, comes to stay to comfort the grieving mother. It's the séance performed by Mrs. Ford, a neighbor that puts the idea in Jules' head that Ewan's spirit is still around.

Richard experiences a supernatural phenomenon when the bones of a hare he dug up near the oak tree of the old folklore, slowly starts to reanimate Hellraiser style - tissues appearing around the bones, then organs and muscles, eyes and hair. Is he imagining things out of grief or does the folktale about the oak tree and Jack Grey contain some sort of truth? He first hides this ungodly occurrence. But soon enough, a fully reanimated large hare is hopping around in their house. They release the hare to the wild but it comes back, wrecking havoc in the grieving parents' minds. According to Starve Acre, a research book left by Richard's father, they need three sacrifices to finish the ritual.

Smith and Clark are superb as grieving parents who are desperate to hold on to the idea of their dead son coming back, even if it takes a physical form of an animal. Cinematographer Adam Scarth’s expansive landscape shots and tinkling score by Matthew Herbert help accentuate the film’s sodden and moody tone. Grief and the power of folklore make great combination for a creating great unsettling, atmospheric horror. Starve Acre is one of the very fine English folk horror films to come out in recent years.