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Akarui mirai (2002)
The mise-en-scene is magic, a dream like aesthetic...
Nomura practically does not speak, in fact he could be an idiot. Mamoru seems to live in a constant and intense reflection. They both work in a oushibori factory, where the warm and humid towels given to clients at sushi restaurants are made. When not at work, they spend time playing video games or at the bowling room. Nomura admires the jellyfish that floats in Mamoru's fish tank; in his head, Mamoru can't stop thinking about his plan. They live in Tokyo, from which the spectator only sees trash, recycling material and ageless objects. Once, their boss is interested for both friends; he visits them, speaks with them about their youth. Some time after, Mamoru kills him with the rest of his family. In prison, facing death penalty, he receives the visit from his father, who he hasn't seen in years. The old man repairs old televisions and radios that finds in garbage deposits. It's been a long time since the father gave up to any contact with the world and its social ambitions. This is when Mamoru, quiet and manipulator, sets up the last part of his plan. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the director of Bright Future,is one of Japan's most ambitious contemporary filmmakers, his work seeks to change the classic forms of cinematography to evoke a state of social reality. Born in postwar Kobe in 1955; he is the author of 17 films and three films for TV. His filmography is full of lonely characters and horror. Bright Future manifests a violent vision of the Japanese youth. Young people with no ambitions nor aspirations of any kind,sicken young people that do not fit in today's society. Violence in its most passive way. Kurosawa uses long and quiet shots, that strike upon the spectator's patience. The father's figure and his technological anachronism serve as a reference to the past, and to contrast the idea that technology drowns the modern Japanese; marginating youth to loneliness, turning them into a disperse society. The film can be interpreted as a ghost story. The ghosts of ideals an hope of social change. Ghosts of memories and ordinary practices, that in Kurosawa's work turn violent, they transform to dead ends. The mise-en-scene is magic, a dream like aesthetic that includes the invasion of Tokyo by an army of poisonous jellyfish. A plastic beauty that accompanies all the questioning and illustrates the consequences of a terrorist act. Bright Future is a philosophical exposition about the individual in society, as brilliant and at the same time as dark, that succeeds to move and interest.