‘Incinerator’ Review: Award-Winning Japanese Portrait of a Teenage Loner Is Gentle to a Fault
Shuntaro Uchida’s “Incinerator”, which won the Jury Prize in the Proxima competition at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, is of most interest for...
Key points
- Shuntaro Uchida’s “Incinerator”, which won the Jury Prize in the Proxima competition at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, is of most interest for its peculiar lead protagonist, ten-year-old Kozue (played by a young actress credited simply as Karin).
- But while Kozue is a genuine, unapologetic weirdo, the film that is constructed around her soon betrays a less imaginative, more normative impulse — so much so that this coming-of-age story ultimately leaves a bitter taste.
- Kozue spends much of her time simply looking around, and there is pleasure to be had in the film’s soothing color palette and soft cinematography.
- Jinta is played by Taiki Shinozuka, heartthrob member of the Japanese boyband Timelesz; Kozue, however, seems interested in him not for his looks but for the way he moves through the world.
What happened
Shuntaro Uchida’s “Incinerator”, which won the Jury Prize in the Proxima competition at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, is of most interest for its peculiar lead protagonist, ten-year-old Kozue (played by a young actress credited simply as Karin). But while Kozue is a genuine, unapologetic weirdo, the film that is constructed around her soon betrays a less imaginative, more normative impulse — so much so that this coming-of-age story ultimately leaves a bitter taste. Kozue spends much of her time simply looking around, and there is pleasure to be had in the film’s soothing color palette and soft cinematography. Jinta is played by Taiki Shinozuka, heartthrob member of the Japanese boyband Timelesz; Kozue, however, seems interested in him not for his looks but for the way he moves through the world. But neither Kozue nor Jinta seem in any way changed by their meeting. Or from the deadpan goodbye Kozue and Jinta exchange after this trip: that sometimes we cross paths with people, and it feels like it might be meaningful, but it isn’t — except that it also sort of is?
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