Issue:
March 2024
Join the Film Committee
Join us on Wednesday, March 13 at 6 pm for a sneak preview of the endlessly imaginative, ultimately meditative new genre thriller Penalty Loop, from Shinji Araki. The writer-director recalls that, during the worst of the Covid pandemic, he was feeling “a bit out of my mind after spending so many days at home”. As he watched a high-profile mass murder case unfold on the news, he recalls, he became obsessed with the idea that the death penalty wasn’t sufficient for certain crimes, particularly for family members struggling to overcome their grief. From that initial impetus sprang the inspired madness of Araki’s second film, which locates startling new twists that completely subvert the timeworn time-loop genre. An inventive and enthralling combination of bereavement drama, brutal revenger and off-kilter comedy, Penalty Loop is bloody, irreverently funny, and deeply poignant. And it’s anchored by exhilarating performances from two Japanese stars who have surprising chemistry, generating an unexpected degree of empathy for their characters: Ryuya Wakaba and Yusuke Iseya. The actors will join the director for a Q&A session after the screening. (Penalty Loop, Japan, 2024, 99 minutes, in Japanese with English subtitles).
Karen Severns is chair of the FCCJ Film Committee
