JAPAN: A STORY OF LOVE AND HATE

]]>PROPOSITIONS]]> Selected examples of a New Cinema

Naoki used to have it all: a wife, a six-bedroom house, his own business and a flashy BMW. Then Japan’s economic crisis in the 90’s left him destitute and divorced. Now the only job he can get is as a part-time postal worker. He lives in a one-room apartment with his girlfriend, Yoshie, who is almost half his age. She works 15 hours a day in three jobs to keep the two of them afloat. She relies on alcohol, cigarettes and sleeping pills to block out her problems. Every night she gets paid to drink and flirt with lonely men in sleazy bars while he does the housework. It is a strangely symbiotic relationship – “She hates me, I need her”, Naoki laments –, but somehow it keeps them going.
For years, British director Sean McAllister struggled to find a story he could tell about Japan’s culture and its strict work ethic. That is until he met Naoki and Yoshie and got an insight into one of the world’s largest economy’s hidden working poor.