Film Business Asia Review: Pieta in the Toilet1 min read

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The first feature of indie film-maker and occasional actor MATSUNAGA Daishi¸ – best known for his documentary Pyuupiru 2001-2008 (2010), about the gender-bending artist – Pieta in the Toilet follows an introverted painter, and his friendship with a rebellious teenage schoolgirl, during the final months of him dying from cancer. Inspired by the sickbed diary of the legendary manga artist TEZUKA Osamu (1928-89), who also died of stomach cancer, it’s a potentially downbeat story that’s leavened by interesting performances and slyly humorous touches, making the two-hour movie far more accessible that it would seem on paper.

As the dour young artist who’s lost his inspiration and kills time working as a high-rise window-cleaner, singer-songwriter NODA Yojiro, 29, from the rock band Radwimps, doesn’t have much more to do than look glum in his first acting role. Instead, the film’s colour comes from the surrounding cast, including the maverick Lily FRANKY (Like Father, Like Son (2013), Yakuza Apocalypse as a fellow patient obsessed with pornography and, in her first leading film role, 17-year-old SUGISAKI Hana as the spunky schoolgirl with whom he forms an offbeat friendship. While Franky’s drole humour enlivens the hospital scenes and prevents the movie from becoming a morbid cancer drama, it’s Sugisaki’s role that drives the story’s core, as the artist rediscovers his painting mojo via their friendship and thereby finds the energy to create a striking, religious mural in the smallest room in the house. Sugisaki’s offbeat muse – pretty but pugnacious, flirty but reminding him she’s still under-age – gives the fairly conventional plot a fresh spin.

Read the full article here >> Via Film Business Asia

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