Bright Future

A-

Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Kurosawa's first major non-horror efforts proves that the prolific and oftentimes brilliant Japanese director is as versatile as he is talented.

Friends Mamoru and Yuji work together at a small manufacturing plant by day and by night, pretty much take it easy. Yuji has an interest in "music appreciation" and Mamoru, the more eccentric of the two, is trying to adapt a poisonous saltwater jellyfish to freshwater by slowly replacing the seawater in its tank on a daily basis. Seemingly out of nowhere, Mamoru viciously kills their boss and his wife, landing him in on death row. Mamoru's estranged father pops back into the picture and starts a tentative friendship with Yuji.

"Bright Future," although aesthetically similar to much of Kurosawa's other work, lacks the tightly wound narrative focus of films like "Cure" or "Séance" which is not necessarily a bad thing. The loosy goosy (aura) that surrounds Kurosawa's movie is disorienting and constantly surprising without being impossible to follow. Many of the hallmarks of Kuroswa's films nonetheless remain such as the society's often crushing impact on the individual or individual obsession with some eccentric project, in this case Mamoru's efforts to adapt his jellyfish to freshwater.

As a tale of Japan's disaffected youth, "Bright Future" might lack the emotional depth of visceral punch of films like "All about Lily Chou Chou" but it is no less on point, providing an interesting portrayal of urban ennui as opposed to the in your face tales of bullying, violence, and sexual promiscuity shown in the latter. The final scene, a brilliant long shot of a group of teens walking along an avenue in matching outfits of blue jeans and Che Guevera shirts, is indicative of Kurosawa's handling of the issue, his approach significantly more playful and sly than that of other filmmakers interested in the subject.

Kurosawa has always been a master of sound editing but the visual aspect of his films is equally brilliant and, in my opinion at least, chronically underrated. Kurosawa infuses his film with an aesthetic that is at once ominous and unsettling, an unfamiliar vision of the everyday that infuses his films with a sense of melancholic foreboding.

The acting is excellent, the usual in a Kurosawa film, with the always solid Tadanobu Asano taking a convincing turn as the enigmatic Mamoru opposite a solid Joe Odagiri as Yuji.