Atonement (TV series)

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Television series
German title atonement
Original title Shokuzai
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
year 2012
length 50 minutes
Episodes 5
genre thriller
Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa
idea Kanae Minato
script Kiyoshi Kurosawa
production Akiko Ashizawa
music Yūsuke Hayashi
First broadcast January 8th, 2012 on WOWOW
German-language
first broadcast		 July 23, 2015 on Arte
occupation

Main actor:

Supporting cast:

Atonement ( Japanese 贖罪 , Shokuzai ) is a five-part Japanese television series ( Dorama ) that was broadcast on WOWOW in 2012 . It is based on the novel of the same name by Kanae Minato . Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa .

action

In a school yard in the Japanese city of Ueda , four girls meet the man who will murder their classmate Emili (Emiri) a little later. However, under the impression of the shock after the body was found, none of them are able to remember the murderer. Asako, Emili's mother, desperate at the thought that the perpetrator is on the loose, locks the four girls up and threatens them that they will have to pay for life if they do not remember the face of the murderer.

Fifteen years later. What happened to the girls? Sae and Maki want to remember, but the other two, Akiko and Yuka, prefer to forget or at least try to forget.

The film begins with the police investigation into the terrible crime, but soon the actual theme becomes clear in the descriptions of the four girls and Emili's mother, who is driven by unbelievable grief and desire for revenge: the role of women in modern Japan . Shokuzai is in a certain way a ghost film - a genre that Kurosawa masters masterfully - as all female characters are haunted by the ghost of the murdered Emili and their fate is radically changed by the death of the girl.

Shokuzai - Atonement consists of individual chapters that are devoted to the life of the grown up girls. In each of them, the attempt to cope with the trauma has left traces in the psyche: male phobia, violence or submission ...

Kurosawa sometimes draws frightening portraits that are touching and wonderfully played at the same time. This almost theoretical setting leads to the final exposure of unimaginable cruelty. Kurosawa respects the feuilletonistic and melodramatic mood of the novel, but gives it a mysterious and opaque dimension.

Episode 1: The French Doll

15 years after the crime, Emili's murderer has still not been captured and Sae's life is marked by what he experienced. She has never had her period and does not feel ready to be in a relationship with a man. Until she receives a marriage offer from her former schoolmate, Takahiro, who has become rich. After initial hesitation, she agrees to marry. But he too has his compulsions and abysses ...

Episode 2: Extraordinary Parents' Meeting

Maki has become a teacher. She is known to her students as particularly strict, which causes her complaints from her parents. However, after all these years she is still trapped in the prison of shame about her inactivity and now feels obliged to protect her students from similar experiences through her severity. An attempted assassination attempt by a confused person on her school class while visiting a swimming pool gives her the opportunity as a practiced kendo fighter ...

Episode 3: Brother and Sister Bear

After all these years, Akiko has not been able to return to normal. Inconspicuous and introverted, she hides at home, spends the days with books and computer games . Until her brother comes to visit - with his new wife and little daughter. Akiko befriends the girl and soon realizes that something is wrong. When her suspicion that her own brother is assaulting children is confirmed, the own trauma inevitably returns to Akiko's memory and a crime ensues ...

Episode 4: Ten Months and Ten Days

Yuka seems to lead a carefree life: she has just opened her own flower shop. However, if you take a closer look, it quickly becomes clear that what I experienced also left its mark on Yuka. She is cold-hearted and cruel - even towards her own sister, whose husband she becomes pregnant . When she recognized the voice of Emili's murderer on a radio broadcast one day, she wanted to blackmail Asako with the information ...

Episode 5: Atonement

When Asako finally learns the name of the alleged perpetrator, she is led into the depths of her own past. The tragic love triangle between Asako, Hiroaki and Akie (which does not appear itself, but whose suicide suicide note plays an important role) during their time together at a university of education leads to the motive of the deed and their atonement.

First broadcast

Based on the novel of the same name by Kanae Minato, a miniseries consisting of five episodes was initially broadcast on Japanese television every Sunday evening from January 8 to February 6, 2012 as part of WOWOW's Renzoku Dorama W series, which has been running since 2008 . A 270-minute film version of the drama was screened as a competition entry at the 69th Venice International Film Festival on August 30, 2012. As atonement (Shokuzai) , it was also shown at the Cannes Film Festival . Arte showed the work on July 23, 2015 in the two-part feature film version. In the German version, the first part lasts 116 minutes, the second 145 minutes.

criticism

Kiyoshi Kurosawa is considered to be one of the directors who shaped and renewed Japanese cinema for the long term. He achieved fame primarily with his horror films , including Pulse , Seance - The horror and Loft .

The work is influenced by Richard Fleischer , Robert Wise and Fritz Lang - directors who Kurosawa often cites as role models. He has always moved in the border area between classic and modern cinema and has never made a secret of his admiration for films like The Women Murderer of Boston , which has in common with Shokuzai - atonement - but also with Cure - the meticulous description of police investigations that eventually lead to the exploration of a sick psyche.

After Kurosawa's film Tokyo Sonata was critically acclaimed in 2008 but had less commercial success, things remained quiet until Shokuzai 2012. Kiyoshi Kurosawa then accelerated his work rhythm again and made a number of successful films, including Real , which was presented at the Locarno Film Festival in 2013, and the Cannes award-winning film Journey to the Shore , which is expected to be released in September 2015. La Femme de la plaque argentique , which Kurosawa shot in France as a co-production with ARTE France Cinéma, is due to appear in 2016 .

“The film adaptation of the novel Shokuzai (Atonement) by Kanae Minato is a successful and comprehensive synthesis of the cinematic work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who uses this commissioned TV work to create a very personal work, and for all TV scriptwriters a first-class lesson in a more effective way Staging granted. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Deborah Young: Penance (Shokuzai): Venice Review . The Hollywood Reporter. August 28, 2012.
  2. ↑ The genre of horror films, as Kiyoshi Kurosawa has to repeat over and over again, has now finally been left behind. “I've never had anything to do with horror movies. My films are about primal fears , there are ghosts here and there and my characters are terrified, but was that why I made horror films? No. "( Claudia Siefen: Kiyoshi Kurosawa in conversation at Das Manifest )
  3. ↑ Dan Fainaru: Penance . Screen Daily. 29th August 2012.
  4. ↑ http://cinema.arte.tv/de/artikel/shokuzai-suehne-von-kiyoshi-kurosawa#.VaTN8sujzU8.facebook

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