Kotoko

Kotoko is a mother living alone with her baby. She has a problem: she sees people double. Two versions of every person appear and one of them is always threatening. Unable to tell which is real, she is permanently on guard, and that makes caring for her child impossible. The child is taken from her. One day on a bus a writer hears her singing and follows her. The subject is not mental illness but someone who wants to protect becoming the greatest danger. Kotoko is afraid of harming her child, and that fear drives her to harm herself. The film does not try to explain it; it shows it from inside. The form is unbearably close. The handheld camera sticks to her face, the sound level rises abruptly and the violence runs without cuts. The songs are placed inside the film; Kotoko sings while walking, and those are the only calm passages. At the centre is a musician. Cocco is a well-known singer in Japan and the idea came from her; she developed it with Shinya Tsukamoto and the songs are hers. This is a film carried by someone who is not an actor. It won the best film prize in the Orizzonti section at Venice in 2011. Tsukamoto plays the writer. Who it is for: viewers who like hard psychological cinema and Tsukamoto. Who it is not for: anyone unprepared for scenes of self-harm; the warning is real and the film stays in them.