Critics' Picks Competition Winner 2024: The Brothers Kitaura
Sigmund Freud would have loved this dark, hilarious Japanese comedy about father-killing.
Critics’ Picks closing film “The Brothers Kitaura” is, like our opening film, a dark comedy about death. In this case though, it’s not about killing yourself but killing your father. 40-year-old Sota Kitaura lives at home with his father. During a fight, Sota accidentally kills his father. Not knowing what to do, he calls his younger brother Akira for help and what ensues is perfect chaos with many references to Hitchcock’s funniest film “The Trouble with Harry” (1955). As if a dead father was not enough, Akira ends up also killing Uncle Daisuke.
We all know that, according to Sigmund Freud, the death of the father is the birth of culture. This brilliant comedy – which goes even further, when the brother kills the uncle – proves double stitching holds up better.
Nikolai Nikitin
Masaki Tsujino (1968) is a Japanese director and playwright. After a career as a musician, he co-founded the theatre company “Sunny Side Walker” in 2003. In 2008, he founded the theatre and video production company “Hybrid Jumbers”. In 2011 he started studying video production at ENBU Seminar. He made his debut as a commercial film director with the DVD anthology film “Kiki Kaikaitan Samenai Akumu no Monogatari”. His first feature film “A Tale of the Riverside” was released in 2020. He is also a prolific playwright, video and film director.
Kappa no Onna (2020), Kitaurakyodai (The Brothers Kitaura, 2024)