A spell of time in the life of a family in rural Tochigi prefecture. Yoshiko is not an ordinary housewife, instead working on an animated film project. Uncle Ayano, a successful music producer, is looking to get his head together after living in Tokyo. Meanwhile, Sachiko is concerned with why she seems to be followed by a giant version of herself. As the lazy days pass by, each member of the family is followed in a series of episodic vignettes.
15 Feb Cha no aji (2004)
Running Toward Touch
It must be me. It seems that only Japanese filmmakers are able to find that light world where everything seems incidental, but every motion has cosmic force. So very many of these succeed.
And again, we have a simple family who we observe, but the thing tickles our notions of self- performance and art. The ‘narrator‘ is a little girl who is haunted by a giant image of herself who watches in silence (as do we) until she is able to perform a trick. The father is a hypnotist, the mother a film animator. The uncle, who lives with them is a sound editor and aspiring performer.
Key events: a game of go as teen seduction; that boy running until unable to breathe as the most extreme joy, joy in not having but expecting. The only kind of real joy, exhausting.
Posted in 2011
Ted’s Evaluation — 3 of 3: Worth watching.
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