2009 08 15 - Movie - Buy a suit

buy a suit / スーツを買う (PG) -- Pre-Japanese Film Festival screening -- Tribute to ICHIKAWA JUN (1948-2008)

2008, 47 min, Colour, Digital, PG
Directed by: ICHIKAWA Jun / 市川 準


Tokyo, present. A young girl, Yuki, travels from Osaka to Tokyo, a city she has never been, in search of her missing brother, Hisashi.

For the first time, Ichikawa self-produced his final film and shot it in HD format. Though it was on limited budget and only lasted less than an hour, he depicted the cityscape of Tokyo, its residents and their restless and empty lives more expressively and most personally than ever.

Ichikawa passed away on 19 September 2008, just after he completed the final edit of buy a suit and weeks before the premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival.
He was 59.

Programmer’s Note:


buy a suit is the 21st film in Ichikawa’s 21 years of filming career. He was to be 60 years old in November 2008. 21 is a number that represents new-found independence whereas 60 marks the end of the oriental sexagesimal (60 years) cycle and the beginning of the next.

It saddens this programmer, a long-time admirer of Ichikawa’s films, very much to report that buy a suit has been described as the first and the last of the Master’s personal and independent film.