MIT Lecture Series Committee

unrated
92 minutes

view trailer

format: DVCam

This World of Ours (2006)

One-time hikikomori (shut-in youth) Nakajima Ryo emerges from his self-imposed exile to offer a searing look at the suffocating pressures facing Japanese youth in the early years of the 21st Century. An episodic tale of bullying, adult hypocrisy, self-harm, suicide, and attempted homicide, Ryo's cathartic cinematic scream takes viewers on an emotionally intense journey into the lives of those who endure the injustices of contemporary society while drowning in a sea of adolescent nihilism. [www.allmovie.com]

Sponsored by MISTI (MIT Japan). In Japanese with English subtitles.

It’s a film that’s as impressive a debut as I could hope to experience, and contains so much to warrant praise that it’s worth remembering it’s not just an impressive project bourn of difficult circumstances due to the challenges of completing any such project, but one which simply shows there’s a higher level of ability here than can be developed within a filmmaker by course of tutoring, learning, or experience.
      -- logboy, Twitchfilm.net. Read this review.