SYNOPSIS
In Okinawa caves, an elderly man reflects on dreams, regrets, and the dead. The camera gazes at still air and rock textures, intersecting footage from Gama (2023) with newly filmed scenes to construct temporal layers. Oda Kaori transforms this underground space into a mine of thought exploring absence, death, and inner fractures. Where reality and memory overlap, she captures remnants of desire and history in silence and space. The observational camera records breathing, cave scents, and empty spaces left by vanished voices, presenting experiential time while restraining emotional excess.
REVIEW
Director Oda Kaori’s Underground extends the explorations of her previous work Gama (2023), even incorporating scenes from that earlier film. Structurally, however, it diverges in a key way: woven into its fabric is the daily life of a fictional character played by actor Nao Yoshigai. We watch her cook, water plants, and exercise—scenes that bear the distinct mark of scripted fiction. These staged moments stand in deliberate contrast to the historical narratives recounted by Matsuo Matsunaga, creating a dynamic tension between the real and the imagined.
At its heart, Underground continues Oda’s career-long investigation into subterranean spaces—sewers, wells, shelters, caves—previously explored in Aragane (2015) and Cenote (2019). The film also functions as an inquiry into the fundamental nature of cinema itself, as an art of light and shadow. The cave emerges as a central metaphor, reinforced by a scene that subtly links it to the modern movie theater.
Hands appear as a recurring and powerful motif: touching, sensing, and tracing surfaces. This focus on tactile engagement suggests that the film’s true center lies not in seeing, but in the act of touch. Through this touch, the shadows of hands flicker across rock and earth, bringing to light the layers of time and sedimented memories lying just beneath the surface.
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
In Underground, I explore memory’s elusive, collective nature and its link to time. I asked why I preserve memory through film, knowing we all face extinction. Perhaps it's to affirm that we were here. The film follows a shadow that travels through traces of past, present, and future—connecting the lost and the living. In the underground, where time seems frozen, film revives what’s hidden. The living—both creators and viewers—shed light on what remains.
CONTACT
Parallax Films
festival@parallaxchina.com
