April 5, 2015
Cinematic Underground: April 5, 2015
Yebisu Garden Cinema reopens, live ballet on the big screen, and more ...
By Kevin Mcgue
After being closed more than five years, art house Yebisu Garden Cinema (4-20-2 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku; www.unitedcinemas.jp/yebisu) is back. Among the initial offerings is the French drama La ritournelle (Paris Follies; pictured). Isabelle Huppert stars as a middle-aged married woman in the countryside who reluctantly starts an affair with a younger man in the city.
Bunkamura’s Le Cinema (2-24-1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku; www.bunkamura.co.jp) continues its screenings of live stage performances with two works from Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet. The contemporary A Legend of Love can be seen April 3-4, and a more traditional production of Swan Lake will be on April 24-25.
The title of the 1987 documentary Radium City refers to the Midwestern town of Ottawa, Illinois, which in the 1920s was based around a single industry—producing luminous watch dials by painting them with radioactive paint. Decades later, the town was still paying the price—a poignant message for Japan as the cleanup of Fukushima Daiichi drags on. A screening on April 13, 7pm, will include a live performance of a music piece inspired by the story, at Uplink Factory (37-18 Utagawacho, Shibuya-ku.
www.uplink.co.jp).