Films made by non-Japanese in Japan typically have a ¡°stranger in a strange land¡± premise (Ridley Scott¡¯s ¡°Black Rain¡±) or are attempts at an ¡°only in Japan¡± genre (Sydney Pollack¡¯s ¡°The Yakuza¡±).
¡°Kontora,¡± the second feature by India native and Tokyo resident Anshul Chauhan, would seem to fall in the second category, being a World War II-themed drama, of which many local examples now exist.
But Chauhan, who also wrote the original script, has brought his own vision and sensibility to the story of a rebellious teenage girl who discovers her dead grandfather¡¯s war diary. The result is a film that transcends its Japan-specific subject matter to make more universal statements about the human costs of war.
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