Antithetical to the coming-of-age archetype, Shinji Sômai's Typhoon Club seems to suggest that any right-of-passage intrinsic to these stories is largely a fabrication, one rooted in the deceitful ideal that adulthood provides any semblance of understanding about the anarchic nature of living. A subversive story centered around youth that provides a stark contrast to Sômai wonderful film Moving, Typhoon Club feels like a repudiation of transcendence often associated with going from childhood to adulthood, constructing an edifice of joviality and youthful exuberance that slowly reveals itself to be nothing more but a facade. Constructed along what I would describe as a comedic framework, the directorial precision here is rooted far more in horror sensibilities, subtly invoking a brooding sense of unease, unrest, and melancholy that slowly reveals itself as the film's loose narrative framework progresses. In key scenes of interaction, the camera's gaze often comes from a significant distance, evoking the underlying loneliness of its characters in a way that also offers an interesting subtext - whether a child or an adult, we as individuals are alone and seeking a sense of connection or identity in this finite, temporal reality of material existence. Devoid almost entirely of parental figures, their absence itself doesn't signal nihilism but a rejection of the control they provide amongst the chaos of life itself. The adult characters in this story offer no refuge, no sense of direction or stratifying source of direction, and I think what Shinji Sômai's is suggesting here is the simple concept that whether young or old, the nature of living is one rooted in uncertainty, chaos, and the attempt to find a sense of being.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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