Issue:

. . .at 7:00 on Wednesday, May 31 for a sneak preview of Masahiro Kobayashi’s Lear on the Shore, starring screen legend Tatsuya Nakadai as Lear – or rather, as a faded star who is desperately holding onto memories of his glory days. In this lean, elegiac tragicomedy, Chokichi Kuwahata (Nakadai) is trying to escape from the luxury nursing home where his daughter Yukiko (Mieko Harada) and son-in-law Yukio (Hiroshi Abe) have stashed him after forcing him to write a will leaving them everything. Chokichi has dementia and only fleetingly recalls their betrayal. But he is a thespian to the core, and can still recite great chunks of dialog from heralded performances. He is determined to find his adoring audience, wherever they are. When he comes across Nobuko (Haru Kuroki), on the beach, he isn’t sure if she is an assistant, a fellow actor or, as she claims, his estranged younger daughter. Does it matter? He’s free to discourse at will, and that he does, delivering what may be his penultimate performance. Nakadai and Kobayashi will be on hand for a Q&A session following the screening. (Japan, 2016; 105 minutes; Japanese with English subtitles.)


– Karen Severns