Collections/May 2024

Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Antiwar Trilogy

Confronting both the specter of World War II and the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, these stunning late-career triumphs from Japanese iconoclast Nobuhiko Obayashi offer a subversive, typically idiosyncratic reflection on national history and tragedy. Replete with the boldly stylized, avant-pop flourishes that define his work (most famously the delirious cult freak-out House ), these narratively distinct but thematically connected films—which culminated in his deeply personal penultimate feature, the forty-years-in-the-making passion project Hanagatami —look to the past to issue an urgent warning about the perilous present.

3 films — 0 on the Channel, 3 unavailable