Mubi; THE UNCANNY UNIVERSE OF KIYOSHI KUROSAWA

Haruka Ayase and Takeru Satoh in Real (2013)

Ryô Kase, Shôta Sometani, Tokio Emoto, and Adiz Rajabov in To the Ends of the Earth (2019)

Atsuko Maeda in To the Ends of the Earth (2019)

Ryô Kase, Atsuko Maeda, Shôta Sometani, Tokio Emoto, and Adiz Rajabov in To the Ends of the Earth (2019)

Ryô Kase, Atsuko Maeda, and Adiz Rajabov in To the Ends of the Earth (2019)

Atsuko Maeda

Shôta Sometani

Tokio Emoto

Kiyoshi Kurosawa

A young Japanese woman finds her cautious and insular nature tested when she travels to Uzbekistan to shoot the latest episode of her travel variety show.

Tabi no owari sekai no hajimari

Hands down my most favorite film I&apos;ve seen this year on Mubi. Truly honest cinema. I know I say this every time I watch anything exceptional, but this here is a very special film I want you all to experience in the theater before it leaves.

Following a naive Japanese woman reporter and her crew in Uzbekistan, we get to accompany a trip in which everything never goes according to plan and the locals never seem to appreciate their presence. It tells a story of how a failed effort to produce a typical shallow travel variety show turns into a journey of self-realization and genuine human contact. A treatise on the diminishing possibility of meaningful intercultural exchange under the current stage of global capitalism, but also its precious value.

Kurosawa&apos;s meta-travel documentary piece masterfully dissects the superficiality of globalization, the culture of tourism made possible by the elimination of space through time-that flexible intercontinental mobility of air travel and the instantaneity of digital media-which should serve to bring cultures together, yet paradoxically, ultimately pulls them apart. Sitting in front of TVs and computers, we screen alien cultures in the comfort of our couch, oblivious to the unimaginable life that goes on behind the colorful scenes.

It&apos;s a profound meditation on what it means to be a traveller rather than a tourist, to be a participant rather than a spectator, to look past the shiny surface of capitalism&apos;s reductive mediatization of differences. It&apos;s an invitation to get lost and then, from those in-between places of otherness, stumble upon a way.

As Shuji Terayama would have said: throw away your maps, wander in the bazaars!

Official Trailer

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOGRlNDM3MGYtOGFkMi00MjgzLWE4MTEtYTNhOGQ4N2E4ZTZjXkEyXkFqcGdeQXRyYW5zY29kZS13b3JrZmxvdw@@._V1_.jpg

Hands down my most favorite film I've seen this year on Mubi. Truly honest cinema. I know I say this every time I watch anything exceptional, but this here is a very special film I want you all to experience in the theater before it leaves.

Following a naive Japanese woman reporter and her crew in Uzbekistan, we get to accompany a trip in which everything never goes according to plan and the locals never seem to appreciate their presence. It tells a story of how a failed effort to produce a typical shallow travel variety show turns into a journey of self-realization and genuine human contact. A treatise on the diminishing possibility of meaningful intercultural exchange under the current stage of global capitalism, but also its precious value.

Kurosawa's meta-travel documentary piece masterfully dissects the superficiality of globalization, the culture of tourism made possible by the elimination of space through time-that flexible intercontinental mobility of air travel and the instantaneity of digital media-which should serve to bring cultures together, yet paradoxically, ultimately pulls them apart. Sitting in front of TVs and computers, we screen alien cultures in the comfort of our couch, oblivious to the unimaginable life that goes on behind the colorful scenes.

It's a profound meditation on what it means to be a traveller rather than a tourist, to be a participant rather than a spectator, to look past the shiny surface of capitalism's reductive mediatization of differences. It's an invitation to get lost and then, from those in-between places of otherness, stumble upon a way.

As Shuji Terayama would have said: throw away your maps, wander in the bazaars!

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Tabi no owari sekai no hajimari

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