Yoshitaro Nomura Film Season, ICA

Over the past few decades, Japanese film has had a considerable impact on western cinema, yet the astonishing achievements of director Yoshitaro Nomura remain largely unknown. Nomura was a pioneer of Japanese film noir and, with over 89 films to his name in a career spanning 50 years, remains one of the industry’s most prolific players. 

Best known for his on the road epic Castle of Sand, which follows the journey of two police officers crossing rural Japan to uncover a sinister underworld of brutality and discrimination, the movie marks the apex of a long time collaboration with crime-writer Seicho Matsumoto. Indeed all five films hosted at the ICA’s season are fruits of this partnership and throughout them are prevailing themes of psychological torment, moral ambivalence and biting social criticism of Japanese institutions. The season opens with Stakeout, a psychological thriller in which two detectives begin to sympathize with the suspects on whom they are spying. But perhaps the best reflection of Nomura’s striking cinematic style can be found in the Tuesday’s screening of Zero Focus. The overtly film-noir framing has been compared with Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Rebecca. Closing the season is The Demon, the chillingly detached story of a father who finds himself brought to commit unspeakable crimes against a child. Again it is Nomura’s style that so disturbingly enforces the true horror of what we witness: his cinematic detachment matched with the relatively uncritical characterisation of the abusive protagonist coalesce to form a truly macabre narrative. 

The ICA, initially established as a haven for nonconformist and radical art, is certainly living up to its raison d’être with this series of screenings. These five films (shown over five consecutive evenings) promise to be a smorgasbord of shock and awe, with gripping narratives, stunning aesthetics and challenging themes.