The fresh-out-of-college director's first feature is inspired by the work of Ryusuke Hamaguchi, whose sometime DP Yoshio Kitagawa lends his expertise to proceedings.
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Courtesy of Tokyo International Film Festival The early moments of “Hinotama: Ball of Fire,” the debut feature from young Japanese director Yaza Takenoshin (who graduated from Harvard this past summer), almost move like clockwork, finding a pleasing rhythm in everyday mundanities — matching the repetition of numbers being called out for test papers to a mother having groceries counted at the checkout.
Showing in the Nippon Cinema Now selection — a space for new and upcoming Japanese filmmakers — at the Tokyo Film Festival, the film follows young Takeshi (Riku Onishi) as he watches his parents’ marriage crumble. It’s a slow but clearly inevitable process, the warning signs understated but clear to see. Takeshi is getting worn down by glimpses of his parents’ flaws, and becomes fascinated with the “ball of fire” that his old friend Akari (Himena Irei) tells him about — perhaps in the hope that seeing it will restore his childlike wonder about the world.
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