Kotoko
Third Window Films
•
1h 31m
Kotoko (pop star Cocco in her first starring role) is a young mother struggling to raise her young son Daijiro. Her grip on reality is shaky at best. Through her narration we quickly learn she sees double of everyone, one good and one evil. The problem is she can't tell which one is real, and is constantly moving from apartment to apartment as she assaults neighbours she fears are out to harm her or her baby. Every moment of her life devolves into a paranoia induced state, where she worries about what tragedy awaits her son. She cuts herself in an effort to remind her that she is real, and what she's experiencing is not a dream or delusion. The only time she feels at peace, when all her anxiety melts away and she feels whole, is when she sings. Soon Daijiro is taken from her, as authorities believe she is in fact abusing her child, and place him in the custody of her sister. At the same time, a famous author (played by Tsukamoto) who hears Kotoko's singing on a bus begins to stalk her, mesmerised by what he hears. He follows her around, desperate to strike up a relationship with her, no matter what the emotional or physical cost it may have on him or her.
Up Next in Third Window Films
-
Wolf's Calling
2019 • Japan • Directed by Toshiaki Toyoda
A girl finds an old handgun in her attic and the symbolic object conjures the mystical scene of a samurai gathering (a stellar cast of actors joined by the 20-person Edo punk band Seppuku Pistols, who also provide the soundtrack) within the moss-grown l...
-
Go Seppuku Yourselves
2021 • Japan • Directed by Toshiaki Toyoda
Completing Toshiaki Toyoda’s politically urgent Resurrection Trilogy following Wolf’s Calling and The Day of Destruction, this electrifying short follows a man (Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Lowlife Love) who is tasked with assisting in the ritual suicide of a sa...
