Edinburgh International Film Festival 2012: Shinji Sōmai

There are moments in life when we feel informed; they often follow plans made with a friend, an evaluative read of a news story, the reflection after a film festival has ended. This could be said after last year’s 12th annual Tokyo Filmex which screened a full retrospective of Shinji Sōmai – the same opportunity available at this year’s EIFF. Japanese cinema owes a lot to this auteur (who died in 2001), his meditations on sexual culture in Kazahana and Luminous Woman drifting alongside pink films from the 1980s onwards. He is perhaps most known for depicting the complex emotions wrestling in young people as they move into adulthood, offered in PP Rider, The Terrible Couple and Typhoon Club. Writers and cinéastes may know Japanese cinema well, but this is a rare chance to see films subtitled in English for the first time in the West. What’s more, it’s a chance to unify the cultural and cinematic paradigms which many under-the-radar directors have themselves established.