The Kirishima Thing (Kirishima, Bukatsu Yamerutteyo)
Sunday, July 14 at 7:30pm
333 E 47th St, New York, NY 10017
**New York Premiere
Japan, 2012. 103 min. 35mm, in Japanese with live English subtitles. Directed by Daihachi Yoshida. With Ryunosuke Kamiki, Ai Hashimoto, Suzuka Ohgo, Masahiro Higashide, Kurumi Shimizu, Mizuki Yamamoto.
When a star athlete and all-around golden boy drops out of the volleyball team and vanishes, all the hidden power struggles, class warfare, social angst and general life drama of the entire high school emerge. Based on the bestselling novel by Ryo Asai, The Kirishima Thing is a dissection of a ruptured social nervous system. LikeRashomon staged at The Breakfast Club, its cosmic cinematic microscope sweeps across all of the institutionalized cliques we’ve all found at every school anywhere in the world: jocks and their kept girls, band geeks who agonize over a single note out of tune, AV nerds who just want to make zero-budget zombie movies and watch Tetsuo: The Iron Man all day. They all had their places, and they all knew their roles, but in a culture of conformity, even the slightest, quietest ripple in the pond threatens to explode their miniature universe. Winner Best Picture and Best Director, The 36th Japan Academy Prize.