Smashing Things Is What We Do – A Crowd of Three at Berlinale Forum

ケンタとジュンとカヨちゃんの国 / Kenta to Jun to Kayo chan no kuni/A Crowd of Three
Omori Tatsushi, Japan
2009, 131 min
International Premiere

13 February 2010
Delphi Filmpalast, Berlin

Cast: Matsuda Shota (Kenta), Kora Kengo (Jun), Ando Sakura (Kayo), Miyazaki Masaru (Kazu), Arai Hirofumi (Yuya), Kobayashi Kaoru (Hundebesitzer), Emoto Akira (Kiku)

Omori Tatsushi’s second feature casts Love Exposure’s Ando Sakura as Kayo, a lonely girl who encounters two dim-witted orphans on the eve of a final attempt to break out of their miserable lives (Kenta and Jun, played with raw authenticity by Matsuda Shota and Kora Kengo).

Kenta and Jun have a vague plan to trash their boss’s office and head north to Hokkaido, where Kenta’s pedophile brother is serving a long prison term. In one moment of happiness, as they take sledgehammers to their boss’s Lexus, Kenta and Jun exult, “Smashing things is what we do!”, which aptly sums up the many acts of pathetic cruelty that follow.

Kayo, picked up randomly by Jun, joins them only to be insulted continuously and evenutally robbed and abandoned, the contents of her handbag dumped out on a parking lot.

An important story with brilliant performances by the actors, highly effective sound, and wonderful photography – particularly one incredible picture of Kenta and Jun with a caged junkyard dog between them, surrounded by rusted-out ironworks.

Credits roll over a plaintive lyric – “What we want is not the grief in life, what we want is the joy in life…”

Visit the Forum website.