dover-hartman Currently and for the past 6 or 7 years, this has been my choice for the worst movie that I've ever watched. There was just enough hope embedded in the "story" to keep me from ejecting the DVD and walking away shaking my head and cussing softly under my breath. I kept hoping that it would get better or develop into a real movie, but alas I was so wrong. Mother of Saddam Hussein, this was a horrible, horrible, horrible movie.. . and I watched every single second of it.The lead character was impossible to like; he even despised himself (his only saving grace during the whole film). The shaking camera, repeatedly taking endless, tedious looks at grass and pavement and walls was an artsy effect that gave me a headache, over and over again. It kind of reminded me of the times I forget to turn off the video camera and walk around with it hanging from my neck recording my feet. Unlike the film Japon, my clumsy mistakes were never acclaimed to be cinematic magic.I'm not some PETA wannabe, but there were some really graphic scenes featuring cruelty to animals that were just pointless and stupid. Come on, what is the point of choking a puppy, you ignorant shmendrik. If you wanted to choke something, you should've choked Mr. Reygadas, the man who directed this stinker. And the final scene with the defiled old woman with her stolen bricks being carried away by rail... that final, endless shot of the tracks leading up to the train wreck must have lasted 10 minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. By the time we finally arrived to the scene of the final carnage, I envied those lying dead among the spilled bricks.Pappy Bob's pedestrian opinion: Worst movie of all time. It was pretentious, boring, cruel, pointless, and pretentious (I know, but it was sooooooooooo pretentious). I've already put a condition in my last will and testament forbidding the distribution of my final assets to any descendant who fails to swear an anti-Japon oath upon my demise.

cokramer Wow. Didn't think there was this type of filmmaker still out there in this century. What's even amazing is I find out this director was inspired by most of my favourite directors, most of whom see a bigger picture about humanity than others: I mean Tarkovsky, Kiarostami, Kurosawa, Bresson, etc. This movie is definitely in their tradition. First of all, the woman in the film is unbelievable in the most exalted sense of the word. She is the anchor of it all and so naturally unassuming and modest. I don't want to give anything away but as Reygadas, the director, implies in a surreal beach sequence, beautiful beyond ... I'll leave it at that. Also, the most memorable singing sequence near the end of the film with this peasant labourer after he accepts the gift of a drink from the woman during a work break from smashing up her barn (or maybe from pretend filming). I mean, who says beautiful singing has to be technically beautiful? What he sings and how he sings it beats anything I've ever seen and that says a whole bunch. Anyways, a film definitely worth seeing in view of the overinflated monetary and materialistic attitudes of this new order world of ours. What is it we want? Can we really have everything? That's just one of the many questions posed to us from Reygada's film. Stick with it. The film may seem sluggish at the beginning but it might just blow you right out of the water (or cesspool) in the second half. I'd give it a perfect ten if I were more spiritual but Doestoevsky, most of us are not. Reygadas comes damn close though.

Armand A man in a strange village without desires and expectations, lives with the chimeric temptation of suicide.An old lady, out of time and realities, lives in the shadow of few icons and with small pieces of innocence.A trip, empty present and fragile symbols. Kids, voices, faces and some words. A sex scene and the cruel nephew. Some rocks, few old soft gestures, an accident and the end."Japon" is not worst or beautiful film. It is not a masterpiece or trash. It is not a story. Any message is not present, any tale. May be a form of remember or a game about feelings. A Mexican sequence from a old picture. A sarcastic joke.But important it is not the tale. The flavor of subtle death is the only character in which dust and empty days are parts of subtle putrefaction. And the heart of this small fight with places and memories is ambiguous hope. Who must be object of devotion? Jesus or Mary? Where is the best space to end a inutile existence? What is the sense of days, evenings or days? The value of a picture or the life of an old woman are more that myths? This film is an April rain. Short, strange and insignificant. A piece of a lost game who has same colors and same soft after many long years.

Philip Van der Veken This movie is called "Japón" ("Japan" in English), but why they called it that way is a complete mystery to me, because it has nothing to do with Japanese people or with Japan itself.This movie is about a painter who lives in the city and who wants to commit suicide. To do so, he goes to a remote canyon, because he wants to find some calmness and peace during his last moments. He gets to a village and asks for a place to stay. He's send to an old farm on a hillside, where Ascen lives. Ascen is an old and religious lady and, being left alone by her family, she doesn't mind to have some companionship from a stranger. Even though they almost never speak to each other, their love for each other grows.There can be no doubt about the fact that this is a very original movie. It shows us that even old people still need love and affection and that even they can have a sexual life. It also gives an insight on the hardness of Mexico's rural life. However, the story is good and the acting is OK (especially by the old lady), but I couldn't help thinking that this movie might have been better if it had been done by professionals. Nevertheless this is still an interesting movie and it certainly gives an extra option next to all the Hollywood crap that we are forced to swallow. That's why I give it a 6/10.