I'm at the end of my Katsuhito Ishii journey and what a journey it has been! I'm so happy it ended on this short film, I've always thought that Katsuhito Ishii's ideas and methods don't translate well into the long film format but in the short film format he does wonders, even if the story in itself is not very special.
Norioka Workshop is a short film about an actor that hosts an acting workshop that for some reason is only visited by two very particular girls. As the short film goes on feelings get shown and more and more gets unraveled.
I think with this film Katsuhito Ishii wanted to explore the reality of acting what a wonderful art form it is and the ground ethos of its work- namely fooling the audience, Ishii doesn't dwell too long on this question and that's ok. It's a very surface-level exploration with a fun twist at the end, it almost becomes comedic!
The actors do a fantastic job pulling this forward and Katsuhito Ishii is making the best out of this short story! It's kind of strange how these characters in the short story feel more fleshed out than the characters that he's done for his full-length films, it's almost funny.
If you'd say something negative about this short film is that it lacks something that Ishii is an expert of, and that's style and aesthetic. As the setting of the short film's "model house" the short film feels very by the numbers and almost a bit cheap, its almost surprising how this movie doesn't really carry that flair that he puts on his movies.
Even if this short film didn't floor me completely I feel glad to have ended this Katsuhito Ishii movie on a high! Check it out!
