Face is the first film by Sakamoto Junji in which women are the most important characters. The film attracted a striking number of visitors for an independent film at its Japanese première. This success can be attributed to the penetrating way in which Sakamoto portrays the protagonist – a woman who flees after committing a murder – while it is also thanks to his portrayal of the loneliness of a modern individual. Since his début in 1989, Sakamoto has managed to keep his head above water in the chaotic film world of nineties Japan by only portraying male characters involved in some kind of conflict or other. Whether the story was set in the boxing world, the world of Japanese chess or whether it was about kidnappers or detectives, in his films he repeatedly combined hard-boiled action with good-natured humour in a superior way. In Face he sharpened this idiosyncrasy and also took a new step by choosing only female characters. This makes Face both a turning point for Sakamoto himself, and a measure of the level achieved by Japanese films in the past decade. The importance and the power of Sakamoto’s Another Battle, also being screened at the festival, is largely to be found in the risks of this penultimate film.(Yamane Sadao is an author of film books and critic for e.g. Asahi Newspaper.)
