Sad Vacation

Director: Shinji Aoyama

2007 / 136min / 35mm

The third and final film of Aoyama’s “Kitakyushu Saga,” adapted from his own novel, stars Tadanobu Asano as Kenji, a young man still nursing the wounds of an unhappy childhood as he goes through the desultory motions of various odd jobs, who catches sight of an opportunity for closure—or, perhaps, revenge—when one night he recognizes the wife of one of his employers as the mother who’d abandoned him years ago, and conspires to infiltrate their household. A rich, moving human drama of families arbitrarily assigned and chosen, its large ensemble cast handled adroitly, and the proceedings given a striking, somber beauty by prodigiously gifted cinematographer Masaki Tamura.

Introduction by Sho Miyake on Sunday, November 8th

Part of Unspoken Gestures: The Films of Sho Miyake