The Kon Ichikawa Story

Shunji Iwai's documentary The Kon Ichikawa Story (2006) chronicles the life of the legendary Japanese director, Kon Ichikawa (the director of films like Fires on the Plain (1959) and Tokyo Olympaid (1965)). It creates a warm and poignant portrayal of the director and his wife who often worked together.

The intriguing aspect of this documentary is how it is constructed. Most of the information is shared via white text on black backgrounds without voice-over narration. There are photos which have oddly been manipulated to move on some occasions (you have to see the film to understand what I mean). There are also clips of Ichikawa's films used once in a while as examples. The documentary ends with a clip of Kon Ichikawa working on his last film in 2006.

Iwai's appreciation for the director becomes more and more apparent as the documentary goes on. It was a great thing to shoot a documentary like this while Ichikawa was alive - he died 2 years after this documentary was finished.

Score: 7 out of 10