Major film festivals, with their hurry-hurry schedules, are places to polish your sound bites, not launch into nuanced disquisitions. People want your opinion in 25 words or less. When someone asked me what I thought of Kiki Sugino's "Yokudo (Taksu)" after a screening at last month's Busan International Film Festival, out popped "I wanted to like it more than I did," which at least had the virtue of honesty.
Presented in BIFF's A Window on Asian Cinema section, "Taksu" is Sugino's first theatrically released feature, but doesn't have a shot-on-the-cheap indie look; her directorial debut, "Manga Niku to Boku (Kyoto Elegy)," has screened at festivals but will not open until next year.
Filmed in Bali, this drama about two sisters reuniting at a time of crisis and change makes the most of its location, with everything from atmospheric shots of crumbling temples and verdant rice paddies to pointed visual commentary on how this paradise has become an anything-goes play-zone for First World partiers, with hookers swarming nighttime back streets and white sand beaches defiled by trash.
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