Fiction

Sanpo suru shinryakusha

Before We Vanish
KUROSAWA Kiyoshi
Japan 2017
129 min
V'17

The story follows three extraterrestrials who have been sent to earth to act as scouts for an imminent invasion. Their orders are to inhabit the bodies of three humans in order to research some of the more abstract concepts of human life. They do this in a sort of cut-and-paste manner by first convincing a hapless human to visualize an idea (something such as “work” or “self”) before taking that “conception” from them and attempting to understand it. Kurosawa is picking away at some obvious but nevertheless compelling notions here: would the human race be better off without such concepts? Whatever the answer is, Kurosawa is too smart to let his film get weighed down by such needless moralizing. indeed, anytime it feels that BEFORE WE VANISH is getting too caught up in its thought process, the director is always ready with a flash of ultra violence, slapstick humor, or a pithy line. “Is it the invasion?,” Narumi asks at one point. “No, it’s the sunset,” Shinji replies. It’s the apocalypse met with a roll of the eyes. (Rory O’Connor)

Credits
  • Matsuda Ryuhei - Leader of the aliens
  • Nagasawa Masami - Narumi
  • Hasegawa Hiroki - Sakurai
  • KUROSAWA Kiyoshi
  • Tanaka Sachiko
  • based on a play by Maekawa Tomohiro
  • Ashizawa Akiko
  • Takahashi Koiichi
  • Hayashi Yusuke
Nikkatsu Corporation

Wild Bunch

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