User Reviews

Japon, a film by first-time director Carlos Reygadas, is a sensual meditation on death and the possibility of transformation in which a gaunt middle-aged man comes to a remote Mexican village with the stated purpose of killing himself. We are given no information as to his name or background except that we later surmise that he is a painter who has come from the city to seek solitude for his final act of self-abnegation. The man with no name and no past is the quintessential existential anti-hero, a character that could easily have wandered in from a Wim Wenders movie or a novel by Albert Camus.

Reygadas has said that he admires spectators who go to the movies to experience life, not to forget about it. In Japon, Reygadas largely succeeds in engaging those who wish not to forget, showing nature in all its ragged beauty. His images of an unseen pig crying out as it being slaughtered, horses copulating while children laugh, and a bird being decapitated push viewers out of their comfort zone and challenge us to engage life at a deeper, more honest level, similar to the work of Bruno Dumont. Though I found parts of the film to be abrasive, I was pulled in by the stark beauty of the desert landscapes, the authenticity of its non-professional actors, and its willingness to explore issues of man's loneliness and relationship to the natural world.

After an opening sequence on the freeway that, in its drone of dehumanized images, pays homage to Tarkovsky's Solaris, a tall man (nameless) with a weather-beaten face played by the late Alejandro Ferretis makes his way down the canyon to a small village in a remote part of Mexico. Limping with the aid of a cane, he tells a man offering directions to the canyon floor that his purpose in going to the remote village is to commit suicide. The man shrugs and tells him to get into the van. Since there are no hotels in the area, he is offered lodging in a barn close to an old woman's shack. The woman is named Ascen, short for Ascension which she says refers to Christ ascending into heaven without help.

Japon is a work of mood and atmosphere; the director's static takes and long periods of silence achieve a tone of somber intensity. Ascen, remarkably played by 79-year old Magdalena Flores, is generous and loving, leaving her house guest confused and not sure that he knows what he wants. He fails at a suicide attempt and then settles in to the routine of living in the desert. He drinks Mescal and gets drunk in the village, smokes marijuana (offering some to the old lady), and masturbates while dreaming of a beautiful woman on the beach. It is only when Ascen's son-in-law attempts to cheat her out of her house that he comes alive and asks a strange favor of Ascen that made me decidedly uncomfortable.

Little by little the depressed man seems to be engaging more in life and connecting with the people around him. Japon uses an amazing seven-minute circular tracking that employs both natural sound and the sublime music of Arvo Part's Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten to end the film on a note of transcendence. Although Japon is at times vague in its delineation of character and feels derivative of Kiarostami and Tarkovsky, it is a promising first effort and I am eager to follow this audacious director's career.

I watched this film after reading some interesting reviews about a promising art-house director, stunning landscapes and grit and reality, as harsh as it is seen through the ever widening lens.

Hmm.

All of the above is perfectly fitting. The camera work is sheer brilliance.

The audio on this film is what grabs you from the very start: The sound is used to full effect, from the bird calls in the trees; the nearby water; the drunken Mexican workers: especially watch out for the singing scene, all made so very powerful thorough the medium of sound. In lots of scenes, the audio is carrying the visuals and not the other way around.

I have to say the story is most unusual and as you may already have read, can be quite uncomfortable at times. At one point I actually thought 'I don't need to be watching something like this on my screen..why am I?', as it just got a bit weird for me. I stuck with it though and, there is a message in there. I won't spoil any of the movie for you by going much deeper into it but as one commenter already said, it is about Man and his loneliness. His desperation and also his bad decisions and inability to change: his world and himself.

I can see why there are so many negative remarks here for this.

At first, I came here with the intention of doing something similar but when I started writing about this movie I just watched, I find myself analysing it and it sinks in that there really is a work of art and it shouldn't be condemned, it should be talked about and watched by many!

There are, for sure, some bad areas where they might have done better to edit certain overly long scenes out or perhaps moved the story around a bit but, this movie isn't about the story, not really. It is about the characters, more than that: it is about Character itself. Even the characters are just a vehicle for the main theme.

I urge you to watch this with an open mind.

Japón is not a film about Japan. It is a Mexican film, but not a film about Mexico either. For me, it is something really grand: a film about cinema and why it still exists. The story is rather simple and not at all world-shattering: a man, determined to kill himself, walks into a canyon in order to commit suicide in peace and tranquility. He moves to an old woman's house and, impressed by her attitude to life and somehow inspired by what is going on in the beautiful Nature around him, falls in love with or, or at least unfolds the desire to sleep with her. Telling the rest wouldn't take long but still spoil a lot.

The important thing is not the story (including logical character development) but the way it is told. The movie has the air of grandezza sometimes, it is the opposite of naturalism, but thus it is much more like „reality` than a couple of Dogma-style films. When you are alone in nature, well, what else will you do but admire the wonderful landscape and small events happening therein for a couple of minutes, trying to absorb it as intensely as possible? As a result, there are quite lengthy moments in the film, which might repel some people but that's a pity because it means that they are unable to enjoy the immediate experience of beauty.

In a review I read the author charged Reygardas with being pretentious and cheap, and I guess he referred to the very last shot (which, by the way, could be the most astonishing technical achievement a cinematographer has ever performed!). I understand what he means, and in a way he is right but I find that what we see makes up for this oh so terrible lack of modesty. Seldom have I heard so little noise in a theatre after the last image of a film - it was completely silent (except for one person in the audience who couldn't help applauding). And this experience has confirmed me in two opinions: First, movies are not made for intellectual critics in the first place. And second, cinema will always have a reason to persist. Nothing like a television or DVD set can give you the same feeling as a movie like Japón on the big screen. Of course, there are a lot of films that need the big screen to be worth their money but, as opposed to them, Japón is something really, really great, touching our hearts AND senses AND also (it is not a silly movie!) brains.

It's hard to understand how this movie can be recommended to 97% of the ticket buying public. The people who gave this movie a favorable review saw a different movie than I did. As some users say, there are very disturbing scenes which for me held little to do with the direction of the movie. Yes, he is going to this canyon to die, but do we need to see a scene where he rips off a birds head and you spend about 30 seconds watching the poor thing twitch and die? Or to see a dead horse laying there with his insides showing? And even though the title character had sex on his mind even as he is planning his own death, do we need to see a very graphic scene of 2 horses having sex? This is also one of the slowest movies around and also one of the most unrealistic love or should I say sex stories ever made

One of my favorite movies of the last couple of years. I happened to see it in a movie theater in Argentina, so I have no idea whether it plays well on a smaller screen. That said, it's a haunting meditation on the transitory and ineffable nature of life, on the tiniest of joys that in the end are all we can rely on to make our existence meaningful. The cinematography is breathtaking and does justice to the desolate beauty of the canyons of northern Mexico. Don't expect a rollicking narrative. This movie invites you to enter a lingering dream.

I took a particular interest in this film, for my own film-making reasons. I wouldn't recommend this film to any one that feels enthusiasm for the acting ability of Renee Zellweger. In this film I found myself between points of wanting to fall asleep and run out of the theater. The premise sounds simple enough, but means and imagery of which it is told is shocking and deserves a look. Some shots in the film linger for painfully long moments and the nonprofessional acting is so bad that it takes you out of the story, but in the end the landscape, characters and nature are well worth the ride. The film, for me, existed in less than half of the scenes it contained, but these carried so much weight and rawness that it made up for the other flaws. The following hours and days preceding the film I was left with images from the film rather than a one general emotion that was conveyed. These images, of course, contained there own complexities of which I feel I was given the freedom to make my own judgments of.

This film, though not close to perfect is a beautifully crafted work that uses cinema to create poetry. It seems that the director might have been heavily influenced by Italian neorealist cinema (think de Sica) and uses nonprofessional actors who convincingly take on their roles. The story explores sex and romance among people normally associated with being at the end of their lives and no longer in need of that type of affection. The older woman lead is brilliant, and the cinematography captures the unromanticized bleakness of life in rural Mexico. The problem with the film is that it seems a bit pretentious when it becomes too cryptic. Also, at times, the story meanders, and I still don't get the title but overall a solid piece of work and a nice respite from big-budget Hollywood films.

This movie is called "Japón" ("Japan" in English), but why they called it that way is a complete mystery to me, because it has nothing to do with Japanese people or with Japan itself.

This movie is about a painter who lives in the city and who wants to commit suicide. To do so, he goes to a remote canyon, because he wants to find some calmness and peace during his last moments. He gets to a village and asks for a place to stay. He's send to an old farm on a hillside, where Ascen lives. Ascen is an old and religious lady and, being left alone by her family, she doesn't mind to have some companionship from a stranger. Even though they almost never speak to each other, their love for each other grows.

There can be no doubt about the fact that this is a very original movie. It shows us that even old people still need love and affection and that even they can have a sexual life. It also gives an insight on the hardness of Mexico's rural life. However, the story is good and the acting is OK (especially by the old lady), but I couldn't help thinking that this movie might have been better if it had been done by professionals. Nevertheless this is still an interesting movie and it certainly gives an extra option next to all the Hollywood crap that we are forced to swallow. That's why I give it a 6/10.

Wow. Didn't think there was this type of filmmaker still out there in this century. What's even amazing is I find out this director was inspired by most of my favourite directors, most of whom see a bigger picture about humanity than others: I mean Tarkovsky, Kiarostami, Kurosawa, Bresson, etc. This movie is definitely in their tradition. First of all, the woman in the film is unbelievable in the most exalted sense of the word. She is the anchor of it all and so naturally unassuming and modest. I don't want to give anything away but as Reygadas, the director, implies in a surreal beach sequence, beautiful beyond ... I'll leave it at that. Also, the most memorable singing sequence near the end of the film with this peasant labourer after he accepts the gift of a drink from the woman during a work break from smashing up her barn (or maybe from pretend filming). I mean, who says beautiful singing has to be technically beautiful? What he sings and how he sings it beats anything I've ever seen and that says a whole bunch. Anyways, a film definitely worth seeing in view of the overinflated monetary and materialistic attitudes of this new order world of ours. What is it we want? Can we really have everything? That's just one of the many questions posed to us from Reygada's film. Stick with it. The film may seem sluggish at the beginning but it might just blow you right out of the water (or cesspool) in the second half. I'd give it a perfect ten if I were more spiritual but Doestoevsky, most of us are not. Reygadas comes damn close though.

"Japón" by Carlos Reygadas is receded by prizes in different festivals and with the critic, in special the European, praising it this one film arrives to the Festival de Cine de Gudalajara. Beginning by the title, that apparently does not have anything to do with the plot, and following with the same plot, this it films can be tired because a great interest by the minimum exists, the simple thing, the daily thing; but nevertheless it is the evocative calm with which it passes and images that it shapes what they cause that stands out. What also it is certain is that it is not a film done for the masses, thus I do not create is commercial successful, because the snob airs always frighten to the great majority.

The director does not have a plot and fills about two hours of the film with shots of Mexican landscape. Avoid this film at all costs it will destroy your love of film. It seems to limp along at snails pace asking to be put out of it's misery, but to your amazement it seems to drag out for about two and a half hours.

It serves no purpose to denigrate this film just because it seems variously offensive to accepted cinematographic standards. After the first few minutes you sense no grand design or deliberate ethic, nor anything more than the basics: a kind of rough-hewn sporadic glimpse into life inside a forgettable time and place that somehow touches us closely whether we like it or not. Ugliness, banality, and evil are set against transcendent virtues like so many bits of straw in the wind. One "ascends" (Ascension) out of the canyon into which one has gone seeking death only to find it on the open plain. Irony demands nothing less. Innocence is an illusion coexisting with menacing deviance.

I think the title suggests something zen-like. Surely an obscure village in central Mexico is about as remote from anything Japanese as one may find. As for the lack of charm, I find it charming. Blurry film shots are all the more challenging for their indifference to sophistication.

Watch it with a degree of patience and indulgence. Nobody's perfect.

What a waste of time, what a waste of film!! This movie seemed to last at least six hours.. What did "Japon" have to do with anything.. What was the purpose of parading village children in front of camera for a half hour?? What was the purpose of a man masturbating for a half hour?? What was the purpose of choking a dove for a half hour?? What was the purpose of choking/teasing a dog for a half hour?? What was the purpose of watching two horses mating for a half hour?? What was the purpose of the hero running his hands through pig intestines for fifteen minutes?? What was the purpose of the hero positioning an eighty year old naked grandmother into countless positions before mounting her..Another half hour!! What was this movie about?? Poor camera work..Poor quality film..

A traveller on a suicidal trek arrives in a remote mountain village. He takes lodging with an elderly woman on the mountaintop, with whom a bizarre relationship ensues. He is eventually unable to kill himself, but death surprisingly strikes elsewhere.

The title is ironic, i suppose, as the iconography and pace oppose the (western?) cultural imaginary of 'Japan': Suicide fails, work is inefficient, landscape is arid, tech. is primitive, speech and emotion and action are low-key and lax, almost indifferent.

Coarse, minimalistic, stunning. Cinematically reminiscent of Herzog.

No, really? Why is this movie called Japan (Japon)??? ..... How did this movie win any award? ..... According to DVD cover, it won Cannes Film Festival, forgot to mention it was for "special mention" ..... I agree, this film was very very special :).... "Meditation on the ecstasies and terrors of the natural world", ahahahahah, kill me now!!! ..... Nice visuals, boring after 20min. ..... Unrealistic story line ..... Waste of my time, for sure! ..... Glad, watched the movie alone. ..... Would be embarrassed to host this movie for friends! Not because of nudity, but because of lack of plot. Would not recommend wasting money on this movie.

When one of your "actors" breaks the fourth wall and talks about the film crew you should cut it out.

When you have horses having sex on camera with kids watching, do we need to watch it for five minutes?

When you have a character masterbating on screen, there are better ways to show it than to stay in a shot that has his penis in it. Einstein anyone. Juxtaposition of images is really lost on the director here. It is brutally obvious that this is his first movie.

I read that someone (Cannes actually) thought this movie was techniclly brilliant-- it's not. Only someone that hasn't ever made a film could mistake this as technical brilliance. Panning off into the distance every so often isn't even a style when it's out of focus. The color jumps noticably in cuts. It's poorly edited, and the last shot that everyone thought was so good is easy to replicate, although I can't imagine ever wanting to.

Ok, I accept that the films might be slow, but the images are something unique. Words are only the confirmation of the images, just a few things to let us know the main plot. There's a love story, an attempt to suicide, death people in an accident, religious stuff, a drunk singer and actual sex. What else do you want from a movie? Well, in this movie all those elements are covered with a thick layer of sorrow, loneliness and stones. Landscape is something important, I should say is just another chacarter in the film, and at the end you know that the futures is always something unpredictable.

Japon is an artistic expression of how human behavior is shaped by the surrounding elements of the environment and human relations.

The landscape, the characters, and the symbols that make the essence of Japon, are magical, beautiful, and real. The techniques used by Reygadas show these elements just as they are in real life; no make-up, no special effects, no sidelights. The characters portrayed are persons that could not only be acting, but living their own life.

I really recommend this film to all those persons that see in cinema not only a form of entertainment, but also an artistic expression that can reach your inner self.

A 16mm camera, a great DP, excellent music choice (including silence bits) and a compelling universal story are more than enough to get your message across. In this rare delicacy called Japon (I still don't quite understand the reasoning behind this title), Reygadas shows how large budgets and star actors are no longer needed to move and transform film-goers (not just experienced cinefiles) over a +90' timeframe. Isn't art designed to move and transform its audience?

Fernando Diez -

Japón is far away from the classic Hollywood film. It is a film with a simple structure inviting you to feel. It is not about budgets or star systems. It portraits a man that needs to think about what he wants and why. From your seat, you won't see anything he doesn't see, you have the same information because it is not about information either. Again, it is about felling and enjoying a journey in a distant world, a world deep inside Mexico, distant even from most Mexicans. However, if you were not willing to spend 2 hours of long shots, and very little dialogue, I would not recommend. If you are, please forget about the popcorn and enjoy. If you speak Spanish, it will be even better.