Yoshiyuki Kishi's movies are always intense, and intensely emotional. The director peels back layers of desperate working-class citizens who aspire to become more than they could ever realistically achieve. Their confines might be systemic, like the boys trying to fight their way out of an environment of rampant youth unemployment and a broken social welfare system in Kishi's ‘Wilderness' series. but they could also be deeply psychological. In Kishi's most recent full-length ‘Prior Convictions' it is both: The film explores the shortcomings of Japanese law enforcement while also telling the story of how a rough childhood can have serious long lasting implications.
Prior Convictions is screening at Camera Japan
Three years into her profession, Kayo has spent a good portion of her young-adult life working as a probation officer. Although she has found the work rewarding and made many friends throughout her career, all sense of comfort is quickly lost when Makoto—one of her probation clients charged with murder—suddenly disappears. Shortly after Makoto vanishes from thin air, police are called upon to investigate a series of murders in the neighborhood that are being committed by an unknown suspect.
A bizarre but true way of framing ‘Prior Convictions' would be to imagine locking slowburn psychological-thriller maestro Kiyoshi Kurosawa and renowned explorer of the human condition Hirokazu Koreeda in the same room, and not unlocking the door until they produced a screenplay: It's got the dreadful, disorienting and mysterious elements of movies like Kurosawa's ‘Cure,' as well as the deeply grounded and emotional moments that take place in Koreeda's films like ‘Shoplifters' and ‘Broker.' This is all accompanied by a beautiful soundtrack of soft strings and keys by composer Taro Iwashiro, as well as masterful performances by Kasumi Arimura as the determined parole officer Kayo Agawa, and Go Morita in his role as the desperately conflicted ex-convict Makoto Kudo.Â
The pursuit in ‘Prior Convictions' is one which viewers are bound to find has many twists and turns, and everything comes to a tragic-yet-satisfying endpoint as the film wraps up. Yokiyushi Kishi's most recent film serves not only as a late night thriller, but also as a meditation on corruption, redemption and salvation.
