love

Poll

What's your favorite film by Shunji Iwai?

haven't seen any
1 (12.5%)
don't like any
0 (0%)
other
0 (0%)
Undo
0 (0%)
Love Letter
1 (12.5%)
Picnic
0 (0%)
Swallowtail & Butterfly
0 (0%)
April Story
2 (25%)
All About Lily Chou-Chou
4 (50%)
Hana and Alice
0 (0%)
The Kon Ichikawa Story
0 (0%)
Vampire
0 (0%)
Friends After 3.11
0 (0%)
The Murder Case of Hana & Alice
0 (0%)
A Bride for Rip Van Winkle
0 (0%)
Last Letter (2018)
0 (0%)
Last Letter (2020)
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 8

Author Topic: Iwai, Shunji  (Read 2011 times)

MartinTeller

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 17864
  • martinteller.wordpress.com
    • my movie blog
Iwai, Shunji
« on: November 17, 2010, 11:14:02 AM »
1. Love Letter
2. All About Lily Chou-Chou

3. The Kon Ichikawa Story
4. Hana and Alice

5. Swallowtail
6. April Story

7. Picnic



mildly curious about the early work
« Last Edit: April 29, 2016, 10:04:09 PM by 1SO »

oneaprilday

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 13746
  • "What we see and what we seem are but a dream."
    • A Journal of Film
Re: Iwai, Shunji - Director's Best
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2010, 12:25:47 PM »
Only seen Lily Chou-Chou - found it extremely unsettling - the mood of it stuck with me for days after. I think that means it's really good.

sdedalus

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 16585
  • I have a prestigious blog, sir!
    • The End of Cinema
Re: Iwai, Shunji - Director's Best
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2010, 01:10:12 PM »
1. April Story
2. All About Lily Chou-Chou
The End of Cinema

Seattle Screen Scene

"He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?"

Bill Thompson

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 17561
  • DOOM!!!!
    • Bill's Movie Emporium
Re: Iwai, Shunji - Director's Best
« Reply #3 on: November 17, 2010, 01:37:58 PM »
Haven't seen any

Melvil

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 9977
  • Eek
Re: Iwai, Shunji - Director's Best
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2010, 01:48:18 PM »
1. All About Lily Chou-Chou (Totally haunting film. I want to say it's amazing, but I haven't quite worked up to re-watching it to be sure.)
2. Picnic (Some interesting ideas and tones that didn't amount to much for me.)
3. Fireworks (Made-for-TV feel that is kinda a mess for as simple as the story is.)

I definitely want to see more.

roujin

  • Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 15508
  • it's all research
Re: Iwai, Shunji - Director's Best
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2010, 09:17:46 PM »
Really want to see Swallowtail

So weird. Picnic is also really bizarre.

roujin

  • Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 15508
  • it's all research
Re: Iwai, Shunji - Director's Best
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2014, 07:02:46 PM »
1. All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001)

Picnic (1996)
Swallowtail Butterly (1996)
April Story (1998)
Hana and Alice (2004)

1SO

  • Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Iwai, Shunji
« Reply #7 on: October 03, 2020, 02:57:20 PM »
1. April Story
2. Hana and Alice
3. Love Letter
4. All About Lily Chou-Chou
5. The Murder Case of Hana & Alice
« Last Edit: November 12, 2020, 08:38:18 AM by 1SO »

Knocked Out Loaded

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1914
  • I might remember it all differently tomorrow.
Re: Iwai, Shunji
« Reply #8 on: October 28, 2020, 12:33:45 PM »
All About Lily Chou-Chou, 40°
Extraordinary (81-100˚) | Very good (61-80˚) | Good (41-60˚) | Fair (21-40˚) | Poor (0-20˚)

1SO

  • Moderator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Iwai, Shunji
« Reply #9 on: November 12, 2020, 08:42:02 AM »
Updated Ranking


Sometimes a director is bad and I use this Marathon to warn you away, but sometimes I get what the director is doing, it’s just not a style I’m drawn to. In those cases, I don’t want to post and potentially scare off people who are likely to disagree with me. With Shunji Iwai, I’m reminded of Edward Yang, my first unsuccessful run at Kore-eda and Isao Takahata’s Only Yesterday. There’s all the quiet observation and emotional longing of Makoto Shinkai, but instead of a high concept element of fantasy, the stories are more deceptively dense.

So, I don’t want to talk about the films that didn’t work their magic on me, but I do want to talk about the one that did. April Story (1998) observes Uzuki as she leaves her family and her small town for college in Tokyo. It captures that feeling of dislocation, of a nervous but cheerfully optimistic young woman having her first grown up interactions. She starts shy, but polite, will catch herself saying something that’s taken the wrong way. Sometimes over-thinks if a person is joking with it or at her expense. While the culture and gender are half a world away, the experiences took me back to my own thirty years ago. The direction reminds me of François Truffaut, a series of perfect subtle moments that tell a much bigger story because the camera is always in the right place.
★ ★ ★ – Very Good




« Last Edit: November 12, 2020, 09:09:16 AM by 1SO »