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| Japon (UNRATED) | 
 enlarge | Director: Carlos Reygadas
Actors: Carlos Reygadas Barquin, Alejandro Ferretis Elizondo, Magdalena Flores, Claudia Rodriguez, Jaim Romandia
Studio: Mantarraya
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $6.89
You Save: $8.06 (54%)
Buy New/Used from $6.89
Avg. Customer Rating:  (10 reviews)
Sales Rank: 78046
Format: Ac-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Director's Cut, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: Spanish (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD
Running Time: 126 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: GEPDTVD2002D
UPC: 842498020029
EAN: 0842498020029
ASIN: B000FZEQB4
Release Date: October 12, 2004
Theatrical Release Date: 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 06/27/2006
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 A failed attempt at an "art" film... October 4, 2008
I should like this film, but I don't. It has a lot of qualities I admire in films. Long takes, ambiguity, excellent, widescreen photography, yet, I can't help but think that the director read a book on "how to make an art film", which listed the above techniques, and then made this film (and threw in 2 horses screwing and a man making love to an 80 year old woman). I found this almost a hodgepodge of art house cliches. This film doesn't seemed to have evolved organically or naturally, like the films it emulates (like the work of Tarkovsky, which this film has been compared to). It feels like a carbon copy of an art film. Like I had said in a previous review of Bruno Dumont's 29 Palms and Gus Van Sant's Gerry, there seems to be a lot of posers out today making "slow, ambiguous" films in an attempt to be arty. They try to emulate the masters (like Tarr, Tarkovsky, and Jodorowsky), but they miss the point. Art is a mysterious process, coming out when you least expect it. There's no formula. I think it says more about our culture when a filmmaker makes a film like this with all the "art film" elements there, there's a tendency to rush out and automatically declare it a masterpiece. This is misguided and foolish thinking. A work of art must connect on a much deeper level. Just because it resembles a work of art doesn't make it one. This film is not completely worthless, as there is some good camerawork and the setting is beautiful, but I found the whole exercise superficial and shallow.
 Tarkovsky in Color March 30, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was just stumped - this was Tarkovsky in color - the same canvas, the same expressions and the same compositions - minimalism in dialogue. The movie is about a painter who moves to the back drop villages of Mexico to die but in the process meets an eighty year old woman whose simplicity of life changes him. At some point you really do get lost in the canvas and feel that you are living the life with the actors - the rendition of the painters character is quite amazing - the relationship which culminates in sex is beyond description - but again it is so natural - the landscape reminded me of my travels in copper canyon - it is God's country - this is one movie you can have in your collection without hesitation
 The worst movie I have ever seen July 22, 2006
5 out of 19 found this review helpful
Dont waste your time ! Really the worst movie in my life !!!
Portrait of a painter March 19, 2006
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
Another great Tartan Video release with a terrific in-depth interview with the film's director, Japon (Spanish for "Japan") is a resonant film whose title, says director Carlos Reygadas, is meant to symbolize the rising sun--i.e., the renewal of life.
Most of the characters in the film are non-professional actors and this is certainly true of the two leads, a late 50s-year old artist who says he wants to commit suicide, and the 80s woman he eventually stays with, in a completely isolated mountain village in Mexico.
As is true for the best Westerns, the land is a major character here and Reygadas manages, with his keen and skillful eye, to fuse the broad vista of what could be called a "soft" mountainous terrain with a growing sense of innocence on the part of the painter who, coming from a city (likely Mexico City), begins to feel the effects of a rural life in how he sees things, thinks about things, understand things.
The culminating scene of a sexual encounter is a powerful one--startling, completely unexpected, and all the more emphatic of the film's theme, as stated by the director, on the basis of that very intensity.
Sometimes what you think you want is not what you actually do--because it is not what you really want. Sometimes you discover that what you thought you wanted was less than what life means to you. And so you then do what life really means you to do--your life. It's your choice.
Japon succeeds brilliantly because its simplicity--which is no doubt what the director was striving for--penetrates our thinking hearts, our feeling minds. A man, a much older woman, the land.
See it.
a true piece of art March 11, 2006
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
I gotta say that this is a true piece of art! In every sense!
If you're looking for dumb simplicity then I'd suggest for you to view other more mainstream films because this one won't offer that. What you will get in this film is maturity and intelligence. As arrogant as it may sound it is the truth. There are no simple answers to life. And sometimes you'll get answers that have nothing to do with your questions. That is what this film explores. It's worthwhile if you got the time and patience.
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