Movie Night

It has movie night at my place tonight. Picking movies is always a challenge. Gina and Kelly came over around 7 and we watched Mansfield Park, a wonderful Jane Austin story. When it was done we were still in a movie mood, so we rented four more.

Got back home and settled on a film festival piece called The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief. It is not what we had expected, reading the back is sounded like a story but it was actually a documentary. The site gives a clearer synopsis:

"The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief," introduces an extraordinary hidden world of Japanese nightlife in Osaka's Cafe Rakkyo. The denizens of this glamorous demi-monde, dedicated to partying till they drop, are captured by first time documentary producer/director, Jake Clennell with candid and poignant insight. Presided over by the charismatic, enigmatic Issei, the number one "host boy" in town, the club offers a new twist on the ancient geisha tradition. Glamorous host boys make beautiful young women laugh, feel good about their lives -- and pay handsomely for their pleasure. In this secret, outcast society of wealthy young people, money seems to mean easy gratification. But all these stylish players have to pay for their pleasures, and they can cost more than money.

I really liked it, and not just because it took place in Osaka, Japan. The honest of the lies the guys tell and the emptiness their customers feel just hit me. Issei said he doesn’t sell sex, he says girls their dreams and has to keep them dreaming to make money. Another shared that the girls come to the club to be healed, that is their job to heal girl’s emotional wounds. The director laid out his story well because you first see the guys and villains yet in the end they are just as lonely, hurt and manipulated too. I think its worth seeing if you like human interest stories or documentaries. Mostly it made me long for Japan.