After premiering at the 2013 Tokyo International Film Festival, Hirobumi Watanabe¡¯s slacker comedy ¡°Soshite Dorobune wa Yuku (And the Mud Ship Sails Away)¡± became an international festival favorite, and it¡¯s easy to see why.
Made on a zero budget in Jim Jarmusch-ian black and white, this debut feature is grounded in Watanabe¡¯s own scuffling life in his native Otawara, a town in the wilds of Tochigi Prefecture.
Knowingly ironic, but totally unpretentious, the film also presumes the audience has zilch acquaintance with Japanese culture, pop or otherwise. The Peter Pan-ish hero, Takashi (Kiyohiko Shibukawa), with his marginal lifestyle and who-cares attitude might as well be living in a gritty, provincial anywhere ¡ª say Jarmusch¡¯s Cleveland in ¡°Stranger Than Paradise¡± ¡ª and audiences in Rotterdam (Camera Japan Festival), London (Raindance Film Festival) and Frankfurt (Nippon Connection), among others, could identify.
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