The man who was eaten (2016)

	Also Known As: Taberareru otoko
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Keisuke Kondo
	Actors: Chikara Honda, Riku Tokimitsu, Haruka Nakano
	Country: J
	Genre: SF, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 25.05.2016, Naxoshalle Kino, Japanese with English subtitles, NCF2016
Synopsis: After an alien invasion, peace prevails on Earth. There is one condition for that: Humans are yearly selected to serveas invader's next dinner. One day this chance falls on Yoshio (Honda), a lonesome middle aged man without any lust for life. Yoshio is suddenly seen differently.
Review: For the first day of this Nippon Connection festival the Japanese spectrum of genres would not have been complete without a movie with a crazy story. Hondo's pitch is just so unexpected and great, that I had to watch this movie.  Yoshio is first happy to be the prey donated by humans to the aliens and really wonders how to taste better. All what happens to Yoshio is sad and bad. Every single person he knows and gets knowing will betray him, foul him, exploit him. But all this is done in such a way that it is hilarious. In the room there was not a minute without hearing laughters. Ok, most of the humour is typical Japanese and may look like kitschy for some Europeans, but I had a very good time.  The questionning about how people see you and may want from you is discussed quite nicely and with lots of black humour. In every kind of relationship, at work, with the ex-wife, with some kind of friends, everywhere humans may try to abuse you. Because indeed humans are not necessarily good! The questionning about what is worth living is also given in this review of all what can happen to you in the last week that you do not choose by yourself. And finally one can enjoy many things, even the bad things. It is a question of attitude. And this is what changed in Yoshio's life.  The acting of Honda is fine and authentic. Some other roles are strange but very friendly. Most of the movie is rather dark, especially when there is something funny. The picture is quite documentary-like. More medium-shots than close-ups. The last scene presents some special effects looking quite cheap, but it does not disturb the movie. For me one of the two best movies seen during the Nippon Connection 2016! As the director is only 23, he has a very promising career in front of him.  Keisuke Kondo explained that he got the idea of the movie because of the last scene. He built then a story which would lead to that last scene.
Rating: 8 /10 Deisuke Kondo in the Q&A after the movie   JoRafCinema with Deisuke Kondo

Hâmonî (2015)

	Also Known As: Harmony
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Takashi Nakamura, Michael Arias
	Actors: -
	Country: J
	Genre: Animation, SF, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 25.05.2016, Mal Seh'n Kino, Japanese with English subtitles, NCF2016
Synopsis: In a short term future, Toan travels around the globe, working for a World Health Organisation (WHO) medical care program. When an infiltration of the corresponding surveillance system triggers a suicide wave, Toan must face the ghosts of her past.
Review: The author of the original novel, Project Itoh aka Satori Ito, became many awards in Japan for the Science Fiction novels he had written, Genocidal Organ, Harmony and Empire of Corpses. Many stories related to the body and the medicine. He died from cancer at age 34.  The movie is almost fully in off tone with few dialogues. The two main characters, Toan and her school girlfriend Miach are very rich and have strong backgrounds. Each phrase and character (including secondary ones) seem to have a major importance, but as no progress to provide clarity is given, I felt more this as a melancholic atmosphere. In particular Miach is fascinating. The global conspiration theory to control the health and the conscience of the humans is explained along the movie and its history as well. The content seems so rich that the anime cannot be satisfying.  The camera driving is done as if it was a real movie, for the focus for instance. And this did a good impression on me. But sometimes the camera movement is a bit exaggerated with some shaking. From the three novels, all have been shot as anime. So there is still more to discover from this author, and also the novels themselves.
Rating: 4 /10

The whispering star (2015)

	Also Known As: Hiso hiso boshi
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Sion Sono
	Actors: Megumi Kagurazaka
	Country: J
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 25.05.2016, Mousonturm Saal, Japanese with English subtitles, NCF2016
Synopsis: Yoko (Kagurazaka) is an android delivering interstellar packages. She doesn't have many opportunities for conversion, but wonders what kind of creatures are these humans.
Review: As first movie in the Nippon Connection in Frankfurt-am-Main, I choosed one of my favorite Japanese directors, Sion Sono. The movie has been shot in the evacuation zones around Fukushima with participation of many local amateur actors. This is the main originality.  The movie is slow. There is not much and, if any, repeated dialogues. This makes the wonderful plot down.  As usual in Sion Sono the originality is full of poetry. The few remaining humans in a far future behave like the few remaining humans in the evacuated zone of Fukushima. There is a lot of despair in the naked and apocalyptical landscapes. There is a lot of quiet crazyness in the few humans met by Yoko.  The fact of having neither many humans nor many androids makes it impossible to me to give a context to this world. Did the androids replace humans? Are all these humans survivors of a war?  Unfortunately there are not many indices given in the movie.
Rating: 2 /10

Demolition (2015)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
	Actors: Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts, Chris Cooper, Judah Lewis
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 06.06.2016, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview, English version with German subtitles
Synopsis: Davis (Gyllenhaal), a successful investment banker, looses his wife in a car crash. Despite pressure from his father-in-law, Phil (Cooper), to pull it together, Davis continues to unravel. What starts as a complaint letter to a vending machine company turns into a series of letters revealing his own impressions of himself. Davis' letters catch the attention of customer service rep, Karen (Watts), and, amidst emotional and financial burdens of her own, the two form an unlikely connection. With the help of Karen and her son Chris (Lewis), Davis starts to recover his conscience, beginning with the demolition of the life he once knew.
Review: The story reminds me the book L'étranger by Albert Camus, where the story starts with the death of the main character's mother. The lack of affection to the mother in Camus's book is like the one to the wife in Demolition. The originality is to build a love or friendship story beyond that feelingless life. It is never clear which kind of feeling Gyllenhaal has in that movie. I had the impression, it is done as a kind of artistic exercise in which his role is to show feeling in his new life only. I was not convinced of the sense of this exercise but I recognise the good acting of Naomi Watts and Jake Gyllenhaal in their roles.  The fact of presenting a boy and an adult destroying a house has something very attractive to me because of the symbol for internal revolution in which two generations are involved. A few scenes are very expressive as well.
Rating: 4 /10

The nice guys (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Shane Black
	Actors: Ryan Gosling, Russell Crowe, Angourie Rice
	Country: USA
	Genre: Black Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 30.05.2016, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview, English version
Synopsis: Single father and licensed Private Investigator Holland March (Gosling) is hired to investigate the apparent suicide of famous porn star Misty Mountain. As the trail leads him to track down a girl named Amelia, he encounters less licensed and less hands-off private eye Jackson Healey (Crowe) and his brass knuckles, both hired by the young hippie. However, the situation takes a turn for the worse when Amelia vanishes and it becomes apparent that March wasn't the only party interested. Both men are forced to team upto find out the truth and saves their ass.
Review: The characters of both investigators are very different and it is already a nice start of the story to provide the conditions to make them work together. Then it is hilarious. The role of Crowe is more serious on the job, the nice guy with iron fist. While the role of Golsing is very surprising for him, not serious, unstable and funny. The daughter (Rice) is actually the boss of the group and this trio is so unlikely that it is hilarious. The humour is playing with the main characters and all the secondary ones that are all laughed at especially in the wrong moment. The acting of the two PI is good in the sense that they are in their roles, but Gosling's acting is more demanding with this complex role.  The atmosphere given to the movie is hesitating between a Californian sunny comedy and a bizarre mystery movie. This makes an interesting mix, thanks the acting.
Rating: 7 /10

Everybody wants some!! (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Richard Linklater
	Actors: Blake Jenner, Zoey Deutch, Austin Amelio, Temple Baker, Glen Powell, J. Quinton Johnson, Wyatt Russell
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 16.05.2016, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview, English version with German subtitles
Synopsis: Jake (Jenner) arrives in the college house where the college baseball team is grouped. One the way he sees Beverly (Deutch) and is astonished from her. His mates are Plummer (Baker), the crazy Nesbit (Amelio), the clever Finnegan (Powell), the Black of the group Dale (Johnson), the Californian drug dealer Willoughby (Russell). They get prepared to the first day of college by partying all time and looking for challenges and girls.
Review: The story is very plain. Even if many things look familiar from the college time. The movie feels to me like Sofia Coppola and her movies on the boring modern life of rich people. As if Linklater would like to focus on showing real life of middle class people, after the great Boyhood. It is strange to say but even by finding some kind of identification in the characters, I did not manage to like the story As in Boyhood the acting is authentic, but it not as demanding as the characters are neither really evolving nor having different feelings to show. Ok, the music is typical from the 80s. Such as many other movies.
Rating: 3 /10

Chocolat (2015)

	Also Known As: Monsieur Chocolat
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Roschdy Zem
	Actors: Omar Sy, James Thiérrée, Alex Descas, Clotilde Hesme
	Country: F
	Genre: Comedy, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 22.05.2016, Schauburg, French version with German subtitles
Synopsis: Rafael Padilla (Sy), a former slave in Cuba, works as clown in a small country circus in the North of France. George Footit (Thiérrée), a British clown and acrobat meets him by casualty and builds a duo with him, 'Footit and Chocolat'. For two decades during the Belle Epoque, and despite conflicts between the two artists, Footit as the authoritarian white clown and Chocolat as the Auguste Black drudge filled crowds in Paris with enthusiasm.
Review: The story reflect the ground racism spread in the France of the early 1900s. Hmm... This might be also basically transferred to now as many French journalists and companies show basic racism in their words, even in French mass media, respectively in their HR methods.  The story does not present any solution to the racism even if it shows one step to the acceptance of Black people in the French society. The goal is not to dissert on racism but to explain a complex life and career.  The acting of both main characters is great due to the complexity of the roles and also to the special abilities requested for this specific role. Another impressive actor for his charism is Alex Descas playing the role of the spiritual and political mentor of Rafael Padilla. All the circus people have some clown aspects driven by the make-up, the outfit and the facial expression. Only the beloved Marie (Hesme) has a natural texture, if we can talk about texture for a human being. The circus and in particular the characters we can see in both circuses create fascinating atmospheres where you can find entertainment, content, poetry and beauty.
Rating: 7/10

The big short (2015)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Adam McKay
	Actors: Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 18.04.2016, in-flight entertainment 10" screen
Synopsis: Three separate but parallel stories of the U.S mortgage housing crisis of 2005 are told. Michael Burry (Bale), an eccentric ex-physician turned one-eyed Scion Capital hedge fund manager, has traded traditional office attire for shorts, bare feet and a Supercuts haircut. He believes that the US housing market is built on a bubble that will burst within the next few years. Autonomy within the company allows Burry to do largely as he pleases, so Burry proceeds to bet against the housing market with the banks, who are more than happy to accept his proposal for something that has never happened in American history. The banks believe that Burry is a crackpot and therefore are confident in that they will win the deal. Jared Vennett (Gosling) with Deutsche Bank gets wind of what Burry is doing and, as an investor believes he too can cash in on Burry's beliefs. An errant telephone call to FrontPoint Partners gets this information into the hands of Mark Baum (Carell), an idealist who is fed up with the corruption in the real estate and banking world.
Review: The story is told on a relatively plain manner for this controversial and hot topic. There is no scene with extra explicit drama. But the drama is there in the daily life, in the common discussion of these economists. This gives the impression that no economist cares about the consequent drama generated by the bets on North American real estate market and economy. This gives also the impression that even knowning the lie of this bet, the economists believed they would never loose, but that the state would possibly loose. The cold blood, the carelessness of the decisions taken by North American and European economists in the 2000's and presented in the movie are impressive and confirms the since then ever-decreasing lack of confidence of the people to the banks. Strangely enough the bank-led economy is almost not discussed by the campaign for president. The acting of all parties, is very convincing, because Bale manages to transmit this carelessness, because Carell manages to transmist this reluctance to what he is doing, because Gosling manages to transmit this egocentered thinking, because the two side characters who want to bring this scandal to the press manage to transmit the ambivalent will between egoism and altruism. They all manage to show how they trick their counterpart and also that finally they are not even happy with it.  The technical part, camera, sound, is also quite plain and fits to this goal of showing this brutality as daily life.  To me, an excellent movie for its story, its message and its acting.
Rating: 8 /10