Kino immer anders
The Family Game serves as an archival snapshot of the Japanese nuclear family in the 1980s: The father, an insensitive and patriarchal salaryman, delegates the education of his children to the dispirited housewife mother, while the children struggle to juggle between academic pressure, school relationships and the stirring of teenage rebellion. Into this delicate equilibrium enters a tutor, hired to prepare the younger son for his high school entrance exams. It takes only a few slaps from this enigmatic outsider to wake the family from their illusion of contentment and reveal the superficiality of their household.
This black comedy is an oddball that pioneered the genre of postmodern Japanese dramas with its bold stylistic choices. The absence of background music creates a weirdly eerie atmosphere, where the mundane sounds of daily life — chewing, footsteps, cutlery clanking — are disproportionately amplified to an unsettling degree. This peculiar sound design magnifies the film’s sense of claustrophobia, forcing viewers to confront the shallow social masquerade we are so often compelled to enact.
Emilie Rolland-Piègue
Introduction shorts: We will start the screening with A date with your family from Edward G. Simmel, 1950 (10 min)
