Underground (2024)

Kaori Oda | Japan | 2024 | 83 min | PG A dancer’s movements and a tour guide’s stories reveal Japan’s subterranean histories in this poetic film. The conclusion to her decade-spanning trilogy exploring subterrestrial places, Underground traverses the hidden depths of Japan, from Sapporo’s subway tunnels to Okinawan caves. Shot on 16mm film and scored with an experimental sound design, the film’s sensuous materiality captures the textures of light, darkness and shadow. Two figures anchor the film: performer Yoshigai Nao whose sensitive physicality animates landscapes that include dappled forests and domestic interiors, and tour guide Mitsuo Matsunaga who recounts civilian experiences during the battle of Okinawa in 1945. At once tactile and ephemeral, Underground is a sensorial excavation of historical memory, collective subconscious and subterranean imagination.