The World of Kanako

A crime film set in Japan. Akikawa is a former detective. He was thrown off the force; he drinks, takes pills, and turns to violence. His ex-wife calls. Their daughter Kanako has been missing for three days. He starts looking. From there the film is an investigation. A school, friends, phone records, a café and a hospital. Everyone describes Kanako differently. To her teacher she is a model student, to her classmates someone else, and every new witness describes another girl. The narrative shows this in flashback. The girl's own line runs separately and something entirely different appears there. There is a drug network. There is a prostitution ring. And Kanako is not their victim but the person standing at the centre. Akikawa is not a good father. The narrative shows him in flashback too and what he did to his family comes out plainly. What the narrative is interested in is not a missing girl but the eye that looks: the film seeks the reason the father cannot find his daughter in his own way of seeing. The form is extreme. Fast cutting, colour filters, text, animation, slow motion and loud music; the scenes are deliberately made unbearable. The violence is very heavy and the narrative leaves nothing outside the frame. This style is the director's known line. He used the same form in earlier films and takes it furthest here. The source is Akio Fukamachi's novel. Koji Yakusho, Nana Komatsu, Satoshi Tsumabuki and Hiroya Shimizu are in the cast. Tetsuya Nakashima directed and co-wrote. Who it is for: anyone who likes extremely formalist Japanese crime films. Who it is not for: most people; the film shows sexual violence, drugs and the abuse of children directly and lets you like nobody in it.