Oda Kaori Goes ‘Underground’ and Semi-Fictional to Complete Subterranean Trilogy
variety.comMark Schilling Japan Correspondent The last element of a trilogy exploring subterranean spaces that began with the 2015 “Aragane” and continued with the 2019 “Cenote,” Oda Kaori’s docudrama “Underground” ventures from a subway in Sapporo to caves (locally called “gama”) in Okinawa.
It also marks a new direction for the director, whose previous trilogy entries were documentaries. “Underground” is not the first time Oda has mixed fictional and documentary elements, however: Both could also be found in “Thus a Noise Speaks,” a prize-winning 2012 film she made about her family while a college student in the U.S.
Screening in the Tokyo International Film Festival’s Nippon Cinema Now section, “Underground” stars Yoshigai Nao as a mysterious woman who serves as a shadowy, all-but-silent guide to Oda’s poetic explorations in the borderlands between darkness and light, life and death, past and present, while establishing her own, independent presence.
In an interview, Oda says that she did not initially intend “Underground” as a capstone to a trilogy. “I didn’t plan it that way at all,” she explains.
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