Full Frame Festival - April 2007

This year we saw only two films. I wish that we had seen more. The two films we saw were:

* The Great Happiness Space
* Monastery

The Great Happiness Space - Tales of an Osaka Love Theief - This film was tantalizing in its title and overall subject matter. The first half of the film was entertaining and even had some funny moments. However, it touched on a sad subject when the film asked the question "who are the clients at these male host clubs?" The answer was not the Paris Hiltons of Osaka, the rich ladies of leisure, rather the ladies of the night, the women who sold their bodies. The sad understory of this documentary is that the ladies of night find that the only entertainment and even only place that they can find comfort and "healing" as they kept saying in the film, was in the arms of paid male hosts. One of the many candid women interviewed confessed that only in the host clubs could they talk about their work and feel comfortable that they weren't being judged or looked down upon. I left the film feeling rather sad that middle class Japanese men feel the need to pay for women escorts and those women escorts in turn feel the need to pay male hosts at host clubs for comfort and entertainment. It's a strange cycle that I've never come into contact with. This film was really refreshing in shedding light into the dark corners of society in Osaka, Japan.

I'll continue in another posting my thoughts about the other great film, "Monastery."