Go to Jigoku!

Ella Taylor describes Butoh in the Weekly thusly: “an art form combining hippie culture with German expressionist dance.” Clearly, Lindy is the only one of the two critics who has a knowledge of Butoh outside of the context of this movie.

Ha! I remember seeing that in the Weekly's review. What?!?! I guess I never thought of Butoh being so obscure that someone who gets paid to write wouldn't have been passingly familiar with it, at least. Regardless, given its (ostensible) centrality to the story at hand, you'd think more research would have been warranted.

Oh, and . . . Very funny review, Lindy. It piqued my interest in seeing the film, anyway.

According to a class I took on Japanese culture, it's not uncommon for Japanese doctors to inform a terminal patient's family members that he is about to die, while telling the patient himself that he's fine and his symptoms will clear up on their own. The idea is that knowing you have cancer or boneitis is depressing, and being depressed makes you less likely to recover. I don't know about Germans, though.