Beijing Watermelon
Schedule
Thu Jun 27 2024 at 07:30 pm to 09:45 pm
UTC-05:00Location
470 E Lockwood Ave, Webster Groves, MO, United States, Missouri 63119 | Webster Groves, MO
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(Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, 1989, Japan, 136 minutes)After seeing his debut feature, 1977’s House, finally get a proper (and very successful) U.S. release in 2009 and 2010, finally we have been seeing a slow trickle of Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s many films to our shores. Indeed, the Webster Film Series was the first theatre in town to show House back in 2010, and in 2021 we were one of the only theatres in the country to show his anti-war trilogy of Casting Blossoms to the Sky, Seven Weeks, and Hanagatami. Thanks to a new 2K restoration, we’re happy to keep the link with Ôbayashi fans intact with his 1989 effort Beijing Watermelon, which at once highlights his willingness to experiment alongside his deep humanistic tendencies. Based on a true story, the center of the film is a greengrocer just outside of Tokyo run by a crotchety old man named Shunzo (Bengal). A community of Chinese exchange students live nearby and covet the produce his small stand sells, which at first Shunzo resists. With geopolitics, capitalism, and Japan’s economic bubble on its mind, Beijing Watermelon is perhaps not as wild as some of Ôbayashi’s more famous films, but it shows the breadth of his interests and intelligence as a filmmaker.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
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Where is it happening?
470 E Lockwood Ave, Webster Groves, MO, United States, Missouri 63119Event Location & Nearby Stays:
