Fatherless

In conversations with his mother, stepfather and father, a student of the Japanese film academy comes to grips with his unhappy youth. Twenty-two-year-old Masaya Muraishi lives in Tokyo where he does not attend school very often, he does not work, he has anonymous sex with middle-aged men, and he wounds himself with a knife every now and then to check whether he is still alive. Armed with a camera, Muraishi visits his mother, stepfather and father and speaks with them about their choices and mistakes and how they influenced his younger years. His conversation technique is not gentle (‘Mom, you brought a man home once and I saw you at it‘), but it does clear up things. FATHERLESS is an unusually confrontational family film in black and white that almost invites imitation, owing to its purifying effect on the people involved.