Director(s): Toshiaki Toyoda
Cast: Eita, Itsuji Itao, Kyoko Koizumi
Before Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata, Kore’eda’s Still Walking and Sion Sono’s Noriko’s Dinner Table, there was Toshiaki Toyoda’s Hanging Garden, the film that started it all. Family as a nightmare and a fount of terror, discord and disquiet: that was his idea. A visually stunning and surreal tale of desperate times, in which we feel the pressure of things unspoken rippling through an unusual 20th-century Japanese family, Hanging Garden features an unforgettable gallery of neurotic portraits presided over by a camera that travels with unhindered calm, composure and Toyoda’s incomparable mad auteur style.
