Japon

 

Carlos Reygadas' Japon, his first feature from 2002, turned out to be his first step in a long, fruitful, and unfinished cinematic journey. Themes that would reappear throughout his career are present in this film, the split between rural and cosmopolitan Mexico foremost. The film begins with a shot of a traffic jam in an urban tunnel. We follow the unnamed protagonist, first by car and then on foot, as he leaves Mexico City for the hinterlands. He hobbles along with a cane to a remote village where he is put up in a barn by an elderly widow named Ascencio. 

It is only after the first fifty minutes or so that we learn that the taciturn protagonist has journeyed this distance in order to commit suicide. The film's pace is tortoise like with many slow pans offering up visions of rural Mexico that are both beautiful and forbidding. In Reygadas' films, the urban bourgeoisie are out of touch with nature's rhythms. In Japon, the protagonist is redeemed by his sojourn, becoming more in touch with the unconscious tug of nature.

Sex and death are constant motifs here, as they are in all of Reygadas' work. Life offers sensual pleasure, but also, inevitably, mortality. A point hammered home by the film's bravura final track and pan. I find Japon's intimations of eroticism to be too literal, especially in a key dream sequence, but feel the film is a worthy and assured first feature.