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Good Stripes

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Dir. Yukiko Sode
2015 | 118 mins | Japan
Japanese with English subtitles

Showing Times:

• Sun 17 Mar: 1pm

Midori (Akiko Kikuchi) and Masao (Ayumu Nakajima) are a couple in their late 20s who have reached a ‘four-year itch’ in their relationship. Finding their life together has become dull, and their personalities irreconcilable, they consider breaking up. Just then, Midori discovers she is pregnant.

Feeling obligated to stay together for the sake of the baby, they unenthusiastically decide to marry. As they prepare for their shotgun wedding and learn more about each other’s backgrounds, vast differences in their values and upbringing arise…but so too does a new found understanding.

In her widely-acclaimed second feature, promising director and screenwriter Yukiko Sode tells an original and charming love story that provides an insight into Japan’s increasing practice of weddings expedited by an unexpected pregnancy.

PART OF THE JAPAN FOUNDATION TOURING FILM PROGRAMME 2019

PEOPLE STILL CALL IT LOVE: PASSION, AFFECTION AND DESTRUCTION IN JAPANESE CINEMA

Love, in all its semblances and dimensions, is a state so universally experienced by humankind that it has provided a perpetual source of inspiration in the long history of global cinema.

The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2019 features thoughtfully selected works from Japan’s artistic repertoire, all focusing on this theme in one way or another. As the conventional binaries defining what it means to love continually give way to new understandings of this sweeping emotion, so too does this year’s curation aim to provide insights into a wider context of love in Japanese society.

VENUE: EXETER PHOENIX, STUDIO 74