Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on March 2010

©Alcine Terran

Classical music fans have a lot to look forward to as a series of opera films come to the big screen this season. Io, Don Giovanni (2009; pictured), the story of Mozart’s collaboration with lyricist Lorenzo da Ponte, will play at Shibuya’s Le Cinema (03-3477-9111 www.bunkamura.co.jp) from April 10. Meanwhile, select Shochiku cinemas nationwide continue their series of high-definition, surround-sound screenings of performances at New York’s famed Metropolitan Opera, with Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet showing April 10-16 (www.shochiku.co.jp/met)

Spanish cinema stalwart Pedro Almodóvar’s third film with Penélope Cruz will show from April 10 at Shibuya’s Image Forum (03-5766-0116 www.imageforum.co.jp). Broken Embraces (2009) features the director’s trademark use of bright colors and complicated relationships, but is shot in the style of ’50s American noir films.

One Shot One Kill (2009), an English-language documentary on US Navy training by Yukihisa Fujimoto, will screen at Shibuya’s Uplink X (03-6825-5503; www.uplink.co.jp) from April 10. For this examination of how young men are prepared for war, the Japanese director was granted unprecedented access to a boot camp in South Carolina.