In Neo Sora's narrative feature debut, the threat of natural disaster and citizen unrest provides justification for incursions into personal freedoms by the Japanese government and education authorities.
Despite being close childhood friends, as Yuta (Hayao Kurihara) and Kou (Yukito Hidaki) approach the end of school, their contrasting responses to the darkening mood around them, both at school and in the national political arena, expose differences of which neither had previously been aware. This is a delicate portrait of late adolescence, suspended between pleasurable distractions and creeping anxieties about what comes next. A careful tonal balance is struck between the bittersweet, elegiac qualities of an end-of-school drama, with compassionate observation of the approach of maturity and the volatile microcosm of an educational institution that becomes like a prison, pointing to broader political implications in the outside world. Debuting in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival, ‘Happyend’ is a first step into features for Neo Sora, who made last year’s stirring documentary tribute to his late father, Ryuichi Sakamoto (Subtitles).
Japan/USA/Singapore/UK Neo Sora 2024 113m
