japón [film]

on a recent trip to kuala lumpur, i attended a showing of japón at annexe gallery's semi-regular monday night movie series and in doing so had the rare good fortune of making a frugal decision that was worth every ringgit. carlos reygadas' curiously uneponymous first film is peopled phenomenally by non-actors and peppered by shots that create the too-rare burden of the camera as a medium for carrying narrative. watching japón begins to feel like a responsibility, an experience that has nothing in common with the bald voyeurism or off-the-cuff omniscience playing at the local cineplex. the on-screen palette is all shades of heather, it's run through with heavy mexican roman catholic allegory, and various dead animals punctuate and are punctured. don't judge it by the hackneyed preview, do try to see it.

LINK: recent wall street journal feature on the malaysian art scene