Weekly visions - weeks 1-2, 2026

Creepy/クリーピー 偽りの隣人, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, co-written with Chihiro Ikeda based on the novel by Yutaka Maekawa, Japan, 2016 - ⭐⭐⭐½

One of the streamers included in the hotel’s offer, and one I can’t subscribe myself because I’m not a French resident, is Shadowz, basically the French version of Shudder, specialising in horror.
While browsing its catalogue I found this Kurosawa film, which I can’t access from any other service, so I thought this would be a great way to start the cinema year.
The plot revolves around a young retired detective (Hidetoshi Nishijima, who will become the lead in Drive My Car) who is unofficially brought back to investigate a cold case, while at the same time he needs to adjust to his new neighbourhood, including the really unsettling Mr. Nishino (Teruyuki Kagawa, continuing his collaboration with Kurosawa after the original The Serpent’s Path and Tokyo Sonata).
I didn’t expect something so unsettling, bringing back memories of Cure and even Audition (although I wouldn’t be able to justify why - it never goes that far). It’s not at all perfect and I’m not sure it would hold to scrutiny, but as an experience it delivers what its title promises.

Good Boy, directed by Ben Leonberg, co-written with Alex Cannon, US, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐

Another film on Shadowz, this one intrigued me because of its unique concept (a ghost story seen from the point of view of one of those dogs that are more paranormally sensitive than their humans), and because it had good reviews last year.
It’s certainly a nice exercise in style and it makes one wonder how they managed to get such a convincing performance from a single canine actor, but the plot is necessarily very thin - a realistic dog has quite a limited range of actions available, and even if its 73 minutes don’t allow it to be boring, my attention was seriously at risk of being distracted by any squirrel passing by.

Ready or Not, directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, written by Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy, US, 2019 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐½

I wanted to show a friend that horror doesn’t necessarily mean scary, so we watched this one together, and it was successful in proving my claims.
As for me, on my third logged watch, I liked it even more than usual. I realise I haven’t written about this film on the blog before, so: this is one of my favourite comfort films, and I might start watching just as a placeholder only to continue until it ends (or I fall asleep, whichever comes first). It’s very fun, and Samara Weaving is lovely. My usual point of criticism would be that the ‘outside’ section makes it lose a bit of momentum, but this time I didn’t feel the film lagging.
I really look forward to the sequel, of course - but I doubt it will be as good as this one.

It Was Just an Accident/یک تصادف ساده, written and directed by Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

You always have to admire Panahi’s determination to keep working even if he has to film in secret, and this film is almost completely set on public streets.
Despite the tragic events that constitute the backstory of the characters - and relatively little happening in the film itself - it manages to be genuinely funny and moving, choosing to focus on the humanity of torture survivors.
The final scene is unforgettable.

Bumpkin Soup/ドレミファ娘の血は騒ぐ, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, co-written with Kunitoshi Manda, Japan, 1985 - ⭐⭐⭐

This is Kurosawa’s second film, and it is supposed to be a pinku, soft-core, film, so I hesitated a bit on whether to pre-order Carlotta Films’ new release. Then the completist in me won, and I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the movie itself is not very interested in depicting sex at all (mostly shown out of focus in the background, or in what felt like the equivalent of horror jump scares - sudden inserts that, by the time you understand what you’re looking at, are already over), featuring instead long static scenes of people talking - about music, philosophy, themselves. Basically, the experimental work of a director who’s finding his own style.
So, the story of a naive girl from a rural area coming to the big town’s university looking for her boyfriend, and becoming instead the object of the attentions of a much older professor interested in experimenting with the power of shame, is not as naughty as one could fear. There’s still a level of creepiness due to the age difference between the protagonists, but I believe it’s handled quite well.
The professor is played by renowned film director Jūzō Itami, who will release, the following year, Tampopo (a film I have to find a way to watch), and who will act again in Kurosawa’s next film, Sweet Home. This was the debut film for the lead actress, former nude model Yoriko Doguchi, who will work several times again with Kurosawa (she’s the doctor in Cure), and also appears in Tomie and Ju-On: The Curse, as well as Tampopo and even Martin Scorsese’s Silence.

The Mass Is Ended/La messa è finita, directed by Nanni Moretti, co-written with Sandro Petraglia, Italy, 1985 - ⭐⭐⭐

By chance, the next film I watched was also from 1985. For my non-European readers who might not know him, Nanni Moretti is one of the most politically-engaged Italian directors, who won for this film a Silver Bear at 1986 Berlin International Film Festival, and will go on to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2001 for The Son’s Room.
I don’t know his earlier films well, but this one - where he plays a priest who’s transferred from a remote island to a parish close to his hometown, and has to deal again with the everyday life of his family and the friends from his youth - feels anyway like a breaking point, where he moves away from playing variations on the same character - the outspoken, eccentric, leftist intellectual ‘Michele Apicella’. Still, most of what I see as his distinctive traits are there - him singing a popular song (although not in a car this time), a semi-absurdist type of humour, and a temper that often pushes him to react in abrupt ways, out of frustration, to everyday encounters.
Like many Italian films from the eighties, rather than a series of events forming a story the movie is a character study that proceeds through vignettes, depicting the hardship of going back to a familiar place where things are no longer the way we remember them, and being there for people from the past.
This structure can be annoying at times, as it may seem the film is going nowhere, but it manages to build up enough elements to justify the priest’s decision and an overall satisfying ending.