Tekkonkinkreet

In a city about to be torn down, two street children treat the neighbourhood as their own territory. One fights, the other draws, and when they are separated both start coming apart. The film makes the city its real character: signs, cables, buildings folded into each other, a different language on every surface. The narrative never prettifies the violence, and in the second half it leaves reality for the inside of one boy's mind. Michael Arias directed, an American who had worked in Japan for years. It is adapted from Taiyo Matsumoto's manga and made at Studio 4C. A real warning: despite its child protagonists the film is not for children; it contains heavy violence, blood and psychological collapse.