Ray Pride

(Akarui mirai, 2003) Kiyoshi Kurosawa is one of the luminaries of the current wave of innovative Asian filmmakers who put Amer-indies to shame (and poor, poor, Canada, as well), finding a way to work within the Japanese production and distribution system and yet turn out what seems like a movie every nine months or so. (Only Splatter-san Takashi Miike is more mannered and manic.) Most of Kurosawa's earlier work is now on video or will be soon, including the singular "Cure," (1997, Home Vision) the story of a serial killer who hypnotizes people to do his bidding without ever meeting them; and the gloriously mad, measured "Charisma," (1999) in which the bad guy is an ancient tree that may either save or destroy the world. This week, you'll have to settle for a parable or a cataclysm or a something-or-other about contemporary disaffection between two childhood friends (Asano Tadanobu and Odagiri Joe) paralleled by the woes of a luminous jellyfish that cannot be exposed to fresh water. Leisurely paced, restlessly strange, not entirely successful, "Bright Future" is a portent-filled eye- and earful from someone just as attentive to otherworldliness as David Lynch. (Kurosawa is nothing but eclectic: among his influences for "Bright Future," he cites Robert Aldrich's little-known fisticuff-fest "Emperor of the North Pole.") 92m.

"Bright Future" opens Friday at Facets for a week.

(2005-02-15)

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Predator vs. alien
(2005-01-04)

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