Louis Vuitton Hawaii International FIlm Festival 2008 : CHILDREN OF THE DARK

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Rated 3.902623380168872/5 Stars

3.9 | 4

CHILDREN OF THE DARK

Junji Sakamoto 2008

Categories: Spotlight on Japan

Run time: 138 min. | Japan | Language: Japanese

The theme in this case is the drastic fate of Thai children trapped in the machinations of child prostitution and the black market in human organs. This new work from established Japanese director Sakamoto Junji does not console audiences with the idea of events taking place in a far-off land, and points a finger at Japan's association with the problem, the key grounds for which are shown as apathetic dismissal, the unwillingness to acknowledge problems beyond the borders of one's own country and the burden of guilt upon those who create the demand for child prostitution and trade in children's organs.

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Screenings

time	venue	calendar	tickets
6:30 PM Wed, Oct 15	Regal Dole Cannery
5:15 PM Fri, Oct 17	Regal Dole Cannery

About the film

Cast & Crew

director	Junji Sakamoto

producer	Nobuyuki Toya Toshiaki Nakazawa Yukiko Shii
cinematographer	Norimichi Kasamatsu
Cast	Aoi Miyazaki Koichi Sato Satoshi Tsumabuki Sawa Suzuki Yosuke Eguchi

Audience Buzz

Rated 3.902623380168872/5 Stars

3.9 | 4

985 people viewed this page

31 people added it to their calendar (find out who)

Featured Review

The featured review is chosen at random and contributed by an audience member. Click the reviews tab above to read all the reviews for this film, or register to write your own review.

Rated 4.0/5 Stars 1 2 3 4 5 rhizome 5:28 PM		An incredibly difficult film to watch, CHILDREN OF THE DARK nevertheless beckons us to swallow its horrific content. Mapping the organizational structure of the Thai child prostitute and organ trade market reveals a tapestry in which a plurality of geopolitical forces are weaved together to form a polychromatic ethnoscape. Consequently, responsibility becomes evermore fugitive. The film, however, certainly doesn't hesitate to force the audience to reflect on its own complicity. Against all the scenes of subjective violence inflicted by those trading in and those consuming children, the camera often delivers affection-images of the children that summons Emmanuel Levinas's theorization of the face as that which reveals the precariousness of life. While the face simultaneously tempts destruction and beckons respect, we viewers become responsible for which side of that face shows. In a sequence of images toward the end of the film, the camera records a girl being taken into a hospital where she'll be killed in the scalping of her heart for an ill Japanese boy. After shifting to a shot of a Japanese reporter helplessly gazing on, the film captures a shot of the girl who turns her face to look directly into the camera. In a final shot that is a close-up of the reporter's eyes staring into the camera, we viewers fail to watch the film in our passivity; it is not we who simply watch the film, but rather, the film is watching us. This cinematic interpellation forces us into contemplation about our own complicity in the film's depicted atrocities as well as how averting our eyes to what is visually disturbing onscreen participates in the same violence that is perpetuated offscreen by closing our eyes in ignorance to purchase a bit of comfort that the victimized children lack in so many ways.