Love & Other Cults

After Ai disrupts her mother’s ethereal connection with Sirius, she is placed in a cult and renamed Ananda, not knowing that this will only be one of her many transformations. Also passing by: shy schoolgirl, the Japanese equivalent of marina/brenda, and a few more that we would rather surprise you with. The common thread throughout this film is the group of riffraff she surrounds herself with. The narrator of the story, Ryota, is one of them and not only tells the story of his love for Ai, but also gives us a unique view of the uprooted life of loitering youth in a provincial town.

In addition to bathing parties and clashes with the local yakuza, comical lout moments are also part of everyday life. You would think it would be heavy stuff, if it weren’t for the fact that this coming-of-age film is peppered with wonderful black humor and a suitable punk-poppy soundtrack.

For more insights into this film, we would like to refer you to the director Eiji Ushida himself, because we have the honor of receiving him in person together with the translator Jekaterina Balt.

Eiji Ushida’s film Lowlife Love (2015) was previously shown at the Ghent Film Festival in 2016.

All images: © 2017 “Love & Other Cults”