Keisuke Yoshida, a Japanese film director and screenwriter, speaks during an exclusive interview with The Associated Press Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021, in Tokyo. Boxers, janitors, fishermen, the heroes of Yoshida’s movies are Japanese society’s angst-filled losers, struggling in an imperfect world. The director and his three latest works are featured at the Tokyo International Film Festival opening Oct. 30, 2021.
Keisuke Yoshida, a Japanese film director and screenwriter, speaks during an exclusive interview with The Associated Press Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021, in Tokyo. Boxers, janitors, fishermen, the heroes of Yoshida’s movies are Japanese society’s angst-filled losers, struggling in an imperfect world. The director and his three latest works are featured at the Tokyo International Film Festival opening Oct. 30, 2021.
Keisuke Yoshida, a Japanese film director and screenwriter, speaks during an exclusive interview with The Associated Press Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021, in Tokyo. Boxers, janitors, fishermen, the heroes of Yoshida’s movies are Japanese society’s angst-filled losers, struggling in an imperfect world. The director and his three latest works are featured at the Tokyo International Film Festival opening Oct. 30, 2021.
Keisuke Yoshida, Japanese film director and screenwriter, poses with a poster of his latest film “Intolerance (Kuhaku)” during an exclusive interview with The Associated Press Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021, in Tokyo. Boxers, janitors, fishermen, the heroes of Yoshida’s movies are Japanese society’s angst-filled losers, struggling in an imperfect world. The director and his three latest works are featured at the Tokyo International Film Festival opening Oct. 30, 2021.
Keisuke Yoshida, a Japanese film director and screenwriter, sits with crossed arms during an exclusive interview with The Associated Press Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021, in Tokyo. Boxers, janitors, fishermen, the heroes of Yoshida’s movies are Japanese society’s angst-filled losers, struggling in an imperfect world. The director and his three latest works are featured at the Tokyo International Film Festival opening Oct. 30, 2021.
This undated photo provided by 2021 “Intolerance” Film Partners shows a scene from the film “Intolerance” directed by Keisuke Yoshida. The director and his three latest works are featured at the Tokyo International Film Festival opening Oct. 30, 2021.
This undated photo provided by 2021 “Intolerance” Film Partners shows a scene from the film “Intolerance” directed by Keisuke Yoshida. The director and his three latest works are featured at the Tokyo International Film Festival opening Oct. 30, 2021.
This undated photo provided by 2021 “Intolerance” Film Partners shows a scene from the film “Intolerance” directed by Keisuke Yoshida. The director and his three latest works are featured at the Tokyo International Film Festival opening Oct. 30, 2021.
TOKYO (AP) — Boxers, janitors, fishermen, the heroes of Keisuke Yoshida’s movies are Japanese society’s angst-filled losers, struggling against odds in a violent, imperfect, often-crazed world.
The Japanese director and his three latest works are being featured at the Tokyo International Film Festival, opening Oct. 30.
“When you think about how the world can become a better place, what’s at the bottom of the problem is a lack of imagination. The theme of my latest film is about this sensitivity, the ability to imagine even in a little way what others may be going through, to overcome and soften the divides,” Yoshida told The Associated Press recently.
Yoshida’s works explore the dark side of the human condition, like petty jealousies and shameful guilt, although he insists he believes in the potential for change, what he calls “taking that first step” out of despair.
In “Intolerance,” for which Yoshida also wrote the screenplay, Arata Furuta delivers a gut-wrenching performance as the stoic main character, who loses his daughter in a car crash. The fisherman has never fully expressed his love for his daughter while she was alive and can’t get over her death.
He goes on a relentlessly cruel pursuit of a grocery store manager he blames for his daughter’s death because the manager had chased the young woman on suspicion of shoplifting. The film portrays how Japanese society, often working like a claustrophobic village, ostracizes and punishes what it sees as erring individuals. The frenzied mass media add to the pressure.
