Saddled with a slavish, boring laundry job and no social life whatsoever, Kikuchi rarely leaves his bare apartment except to follow home and spy on a supermarket check-out girl. But there's no one he can tell about his secret passion, least of all his gawping, work-shy colleague. Even a stray kitten can't alleviate Kikuchi's frustration; clearly, something's got to give... This first film by a former manga illustrator, a terse and enigmatic blend of black comedy and psychodrama, has been compared to both Eraserhead and Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman; another point of reference might be the slow, deceptively banal domestic dramas of Ozu, with whom Iwamoto shares a penchant for a mostly static camera, simple compositions, and an eye for the absurd details of everyday life.
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Cast
5 people
Kenchi Iwamoto Director
First release February 22, 1991 · Produced in Japan · Original title 菊池
Production
Japan
Produced in
Languages
Original title
菊池
Original language
Japanese
Spoken on screen
Japanese
Release dates
Germany · February 22, 1991
Theatrical
No release date listed for United States.
Sweden
November 1, 1991 · Stockholm International Film Festival
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Some details come from TheTVDB.