'Pacifiction' Review: Here's the Art Film of the Year
So the film feels much longer than its 126 minutes, and relies solely on the assumption that we’ll be deeply invested in this lead character and get some vicarious thrill from seeing her throw off the restrictive shackles of her place in society and take what is not hers -in love and in material gain. But it is also a remarkably plodding telling of a familiar story, one that unfolds in so linear a fashion that it feels oddly overexplained, only ever operating on a single level, entirely without subtext or subplot. It boasts a locally well-known lead in stage and screen actress Rie Miyazawa, plus a springy, culturally and temporally relevant-feeling plot about the corrupting lure of money. “Pale Moon,” the fourth feature from director Daihachi Yoshida, is certainly more slickly made than some of the other competition titles here.
And it just scooped the Audience Award, having earned at least mild praise from most critics, so really the only kink in that narrative is us, contrarians that we are. As the only Japanese film playing in competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival, expectations were high and goodwill primed to cheer the root-of-all-evil tale “ Pale Moon” as the local find of the week.
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