Unloved

• Yōko Moriguchi: Mitsuko Kageyama
• Tōru Nakamura: Eiji Katsuno
• Shunsuke Matsuoka: Hiroshi Shimokawa
• Taro Suwa restaurant owner
• Miki Sanjo: Anzai

Unloved (also: United Nations loved ) is a romantic film drama by director Kunitoshi Manda from 2001 The staging is Manda's feature film debut and is about a steadfast Japanese woman who lives in quiet harmony with themselves and their environment, but then fundamentally different between two men. must decide.

Action

Tokyo in the present. Mitsuko is an unobtrusive, living alone employees in their thirties, the happy and full of optimism denies their existence. The humble clerk loves the simplicity of things, social and professional ambitions notwithstanding. One day the restrained woman falls on the always fierce businessman Eiji, who courts her somewhat clumsy. The two different characters are finally a couple.

The common happiness wants to be in the result but not set. Mitsuko feels uncomfortable off their staid clothing and familiar surroundings. The performance-based IT entrepreneur does not fit somehow to their quiet and modest life. When she tells Eiji about her feelings, she meets with incomprehension. The social difference they can doubt. The relationship breaks down.

A little later Mitsuko learns their neighbors know Hiroshi, a shy 28 -year-old warehouse worker from simple living conditions. The man immediately exerts a certain fascination for her. Mitsuko hopes to have a soul mate without ambition found. The love is clouded by a nocturnal visit to the spurned Eiji. The presence of the successful and self-assured rival changed Hiroshi sustainable. Driven by feelings of inferiority he retires, Mitsukos affection not sure, self-pitying back. The taciturn laborer envied Eiji about its lifestyle because he thinks erroneously, bidding his beloved more. It comes to disputes. Mitsukos illusion of having found her a kindred spirit breaks. In the end she is struggling with tears for Hiroshi's love. When the chosen one remembers autonomously to his reason, a happy togetherness, nothing stands in the way.

Background

Director Kunitoshi Manda, born in 1956, previously worked as a co-writer and assistant director for Kiyoshi Kurosawa, including for Kanda -gawa INRAN senso ( Kandagawa Wars, 1983) and Do-re -mi -fa - musume no chi wa sawagu (The Excitement of the Do-Re -Mi - Fa Girl, 1985), followed by directing for television productions and short films. Unloved is Manda's first full-length feature film.

A 117 -minute version of the triangle was premiered in Cannes in 2001, award-winning parallèle in the section. Then Unloved was shown at several festivals. In Japan, the work was published on 25 May 2002, in Germany on 31 October 2002 in the original language with German subtitles.

Reviews

The lexicon of the International film writes, Unloved is a " radical study of a outmoded character, the extremely reduced by their contemplative imagery " is fascinated. The staging was " psychologically finely spun and as an alternative to development paradigm of modernity is not without culture-critical undertones ". Furthermore, the film could impress with " his cinematic qualities ".

The film magazine Cinema designated in its online edition of the work as a " precise portrait of an unusual heroine ."

Harald Peters is dedicated to the taz the " problem total satisfaction ." The director raises " questions of philosophical significance " that have run through the figures as in a " laboratory experiment ". Consequently, Manda's characters act " like a board game " by " pleasantly simple scenes".

Awards

International Film Festival of Cannes 2001

• The film was honored with two subsidiary awards, including the Prix Futur talent as well as the Grand Prix rail d'or

Japanese Professional Movie Awards 2003

• Award in the category Best Actress for Yōko Moriguchi
• Award in the category Best Director for Kunitoshi Manda (together with Akihiko Shiota for Harmful Insect )