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Rating:
Junji Sakamoto's extraordinary character study Face is subtle, poignant, and even during its blackest moments, funny. Masako's character seems cut from the same cloth as the women in Shohei Imamura's works: stubborn, amoral, instinctive, and indomitable. After living most of her life in the cloistered isolation of her mother's laundry business, she is hellbent on fulfilling her modest goals: to learn to swim, to learn to ride a bike, and to hide from her past. Her singled-mindedness coupled with her social ineptitude seems to in turns baffle and endear those she meets on her fugitive journey. Masako encounters almost every stripe and flavor of Japan's disenfranchised, victims of that country's decade-long economic malaise -- down-sized salarymen, hard-up yakuza, and debt-wracked hotel owners -- all of whom seem just as desperate for redemption as Masako. Thanks to Sakamoto's adept direction and keen attention to tone, this potentially depressing tale stays light and engaging while never trivializing the protagonist's dreams or plight. Thanks to Naomi Fujiyama's tour-de-force performance, Masako is a remarkably complex and fascinating character capable of murder, love, and joy. Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

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