Ainu Mosir

Writer-director Takeshi Fukunaga demonstrates an admirable control of mood.

Has some issues when it moves beyond its documentary-like premises, but the non-exotification approach Fukunaga implements, the thorough and realistic portrait of Ainu life nowadays, and the visuals of the movie definitely compensate

Fukagawa's narrative might lack some emotionality, but he successfully confronts the spectator with an enduring problem marking modernity: the problem of accepting the Otherness of the bi-cultured other.

It's rooted in cruel reality to be sure, but there's also something mythical and fablelike about it. The film ultimately feels like a very modern telling of a classic bedtime story.

A modestly-scaled but emotionally effective coming-of-age drama.