Stage & Screen

Five films that help make sense of Japanese culture

Published in Stage & Screen on 1 January 2024

"Japan is a modern country without being a Western one." The phrase belongs to Pierre-François Souyri, a historian of Japan, and it holds up well. Japan is a developed country, and it is easy to find things there that look familiar. Watch how people behave, though, and talk to anyone local, and the differences in how life is lived and how the world is seen become hard to miss. Here are five films we suggest watching before you travel to Japan, to give you a firmer grip on Japanese society and on where it diverges