Meu Deus, Meu Deus, Por Que Me Abandonaste?

I happen to think Shinji Aoyama is one of the best film makers working today. I was virtually dragged to see Eureka by my boyfriend who knew nothing about the film, but loved the idea that it was 4 hours long and Japanese: I found myself totally entranced by one of the most absorbing, intensely human films I've ever seen. A couple of years later I ran into Desert Moon and was again bowled over (it took me a moment to realise it was the same director).

As you can imagine I had (very) high expectations of this movie: the bible's most devastating phrase for a title and mass suicide the theme (and believe me, Shinji Aoyama is a master at drawing immense hope out of the deepest despair)... and, well, it wasn't that great. It's still a good film - beautiful to look at, interesting themes intelligently developed, plenty of room given for good acting, and some very lovely music, but it just lacked the depth I was expecting. At some points it even started to resemble a music video...

Maybe I'm being harder on this film than it deserves - it's still more worthwhile than a lot of the films I've seen over the past year - but Shinji Aoyama is capable of genius and simply doesn't deliver it here...