West Coast premiere
Sion Sono is best known as a cinematic provocateur with films like Suicide Club and Love Exposure. But what many do not know is that Sono is equally well known in Japan as a poet and that softer side of his personality gets exposed in BE SURE TO SHARE.
Featuring Japanese pop star Akira in one of his first motion picture performances, you’d think this would be nothing more than a disposable flick for his music fans. But Sono transforms this film into a quiet meditation on death and the relationship between fathers and sons (the film was reportedly made as a reaction to the recent death of Sono's own father). Director and actor Eiji Okuda plays a tough-as-nails father who makes the Great Santini look like a wimp. Now, diagnosed with cancer he’s trapped in the hospital and his wife and son (Akira) spend their days visiting and trying to keep his spirits up. Just when it looks like he’s about to recover, Akira finds out that he has cancer too, and that his father may out-live him. Determined not to worry anyone, he keeps it to himself and vows that he’ll beat his disease.
Jumping backwards and forwards in time, BE SURE TO SHARE isn’t an easy-to-swallow melodrama about fathers and sons. Sono opens the film up and makes it an essay, colored with regret, about how we’re constantly running after each other, and never catching up. About the small things we do every day without thinking about them and how these tiny, insignificant moments ultimately make up our lives. - adapted from Subway Cinema
This screening was made possible by Debbi Spungen
Co-presented by:
Japan Society of San Diego and Tijuana
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