Brand New Landscape
A highly acclaimed, contemplative Japanese drama set against the backdrop of ultra-modern Tokyo, about an orchid courier struggling to come to terms with his mother’s death and his father’s absence. Until one delivery changes everything.
Adult siblings Ren and Emi have recovered, more or less, from the family tragedy that marked their childhood: Ren now drifts through life as a flower deliveryman, and Emi is engaged, though she privately doubts her suitability for long-term commitment. Their fragile equilibrium is shaken when they re-unite with their father, Hajimi, a famous architect who has taken control of a controversial new urban-redevelopment project in Shibuya that will displace the neighbourhood’s unhoused population. As in their childhood, when he left the family after their mother’s sudden death, Hajimi is willing to take a bulldozer to the past to make room for the future.
In his debut feature, writer-director Yuiga Danzuka (son of renowned earthscape designer Eiki Danzuka) casts a calm gaze over Tokyo’s ‘brand new landscape’ of modern architecture. Opening with a shot of a fast-food family meal, the film picks up where Edward Yang left off in Yi Yi, taking a domestic drama and seeding it with an ambitious commentary on how the structure of capitalism shapes and distorts our most intimate relationships.
Written by AV