Thursday, September 23, 2010

Ito - kilvoittelijan päiväkirja / Ito - A Diary of an Urban Priest

[shown at the Festival with the Finnish title ITO - seitti - kilvoittelijan päiväkirja]. FI/JP © 2008 Millennium Baabel, release year 2010. D+ED: Pirjo Honkasalo. SC: Pirjo Honkasalo, Miika Pölkki. DP: Pirjo Honkasalo, with Marita Hällfors. Featuring: Yoshinobu Fujioka. 111 min. In Japanese with Finnish subtitles. A Cinema Mondo print viewed at Helsinki Film Festival (Bio Rex) 23 Sep 2010
ITO is a part of the Tokyo Modern project by NHK.

In the presence of Pirjo Honkasalo, Yoshinobu Fujioka, Miika Pölkki, Marika Hällfors, Joonas Jyrälä, Miia Nevalainen, Panu Riikonen.

Preceded by a concert by the Buddhist monk Yoshinobu Fujioka.

The new high profile documentary by Pirjo Honkasalo is the portrait of the former boxer Yoshinobu Fujioka who has become a Buddhist monk. Incredibly, we are taken to personal conversations e.g. with a woman who has murdered her husband. We witness Yoshinobu Fujioka's encounter with his boxing manager - and with his mother, who had abandoned her son to become a Buddhist herself.

There is an explicit digital video look in the movie.

Pirjo Honkasalo said that she prefers no Q & A, expecting people rather go out into the night to contemplate the film themselves. There is a lot to contemplate.

No comments: