Friday, April 20 | 8 pm
Saturday, April 21 | 8 pm
Sunday, April 22 | 5:30 pm
Revered Japanese horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa puts his indelible stamp on the science fiction genre with the philosophically minded alien-invasion thriller Before We Vanish. Set somewhere in the near future, the film follows three extraterrestrial beings who have been sent to our planet in advance of a mass invasion. Disguised as ordinary earthlings, they attempt to understand their human targets by forcibly acquiring essential conceptions like self, family, freedom, and love from hapless bystanders (who lose their own understanding of those ideas in return). Embellishing his gracefully uncanny style with slapstick humor, delicate romance, and B-movie action flourishes, Kurosawa explores new artistic territory without sacrificing his trademark Hitchcockian rigor. Elevated by charismatic performances and a smartly constructed screenplay, Before We Vanish is one of the director’s lightest, most purely entertaining films.
Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa | 2017 | In Japanese with English subtitles | 129 minutes | NR | DCP