Kore-eda Hirokazu

Films like Shoplifters and After the Storm have made Kore-eda Hirokazu one of the most acclaimed auteurs working today.

Critics often see Kore-eda as a director steeped in the Japanese tradition defined by Yasujiro Ozu.

Marc Yamada, however, views Kore-eda’s work in relation to the same socioeconomic concerns explored by other contemporary international filmmakers.

Yamada reveals that a type of excess, not the minimalism associated with traditional aesthetics, defines Kore-eda’s trademark humanism.

This excess manifests in small moments when a desire for human connection exceeds the logic of the institutions and policies formed by the neoliberal values that have shaped modern-day Japan.

As Yamada shows, Kore-eda captures the shared spaces formed by bodies that move, perform, and assemble in ways that express the humanistic impulse at the core of the filmmaker’s expanding worldwide appeal.