Harmful Insect

Toronto International Film Festival Program Guide
2001

Harmful Insect
Akihiko Shiota
JAPAN, 2001
92 minutes Colour/35mm
Production Company: Nikkatsu
Executive Producer: Masaya Nakamura
Producer: Hiroyuki Negishi, Takashi Hirano
Screenplay: Yayoi Kiyono
Cinematographer: Tokusho Kikumura
Editor: Yoshio Sugano
Production Designer: Tashihiro Isomi
Sound: Masaru Usui
Music: Number Girl
Principal Cast: Aoi Miyazaki, Seiichi Tanabe, Ryo, Yuu Aoi, Tetsu Sawaki
Production: Nikkatsu Corporation

The last several years have seen a new movement of independent voices emerge in Japanese cinema. Crafted outside the control of the three major studios, these genre-savvy and cinematically sophisticated films capture the chaos and calm of contemporary Japan, maintaining a sense of detachment and illuminating a perspective that views history and tradition as exotic.

In his third feature, Akihiko Shiota—whose first film Moonlight Whispers focused on a teenaged couple engaged in a sado-masochistic relationship and earned him the best new director award from the Director's Guild of Japan—once again displays his talent for suggesting the complexity of human character and experience.

Sachiko, a twelve-year-old girl in junior high school, has a complicated life. When she was still an infant, her father disappeared with a young mistress. Her mother, who works in a bar as a hostess, is unable to live without outside assistance, which may explain why she always seems so secretive and mysterious. Longing for an escape from her dreary existence and lacking in any kind of wise or responsible parental guidance, Sachiko has a short-lived affair with her sixth-grade teacher, Ogata.

But fearing that his indiscretion might be discovered, Ogata moves to a town far away. Although he and Sachiko continue a written correspondence, soon the absence of her only real friend and confidant leads Sachiko into a deep melancholy. When her mother attempts to commit suicide, the turbulence of Sachiko's life becomes too much to bear. After dropping out of school, she finds temporary solace in the company of others who have fallen through the cracks of middle-class society. But when she is forced back into the confines of her classroom, her long-dormant rage begins to surface and her life quickly spins out of control.

Like Shiota’s virtually plotless Don’t Look Back, Harmful Insect is ultimately founded on the small, almost imperceptible shifts of emotion in its young heroine. With this tale of youthful misadventure, Shiota further establishes himself as a master of subtlety in his portrayal of characters’ thoughts and feelings, while never completely ignoring their inherent ambiguity.
—Noah Cowan