Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
The Depths Year 2010 Country South Korea/Japan Language Japanese with English subtitles Runtime 121 min. Digital Color The most unexpected work in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s early oeuvre, The Depths is a queer thriller that circles around the tenuous relationship between an artist and his muse. Bae-hwan (Kim Min-jun) is a sought-after Korean fashion photographer in Japan for the wedding of a college friend, Gilsu (Soji Arai), reduced to shooting softcore porn. It’s in Gilsu’s studio that Bae-hwan becomes fascinated with Ryu (Hoshi Ishida), a cocky escort one step ahead of his pimp after a VIP client dies in his company. The film’s gritty urban scene contrasts sharply with the stable middle-class environs that are Hamaguchi’s usual milieu but he acquits himself well on unfamiliar territory in a film that feels like a possible path not chosen.—Senior Public Programmer Paul Malcolm DCP. Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi. Screenwriters: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Kota Oura. With: Kim Min-jun, Hoshi Ishida, Soji Arai. Screening 2 of 2 Touching the Skin of Eeriness Year 2013 Country Japan Language Japanese with English subtitles Runtime 54 min. Digital Color The river coursing through the city where Chihiro (Shota Sometani) has come to live with his older brother after the death of their parents provides director Ryusuke Hamaguchi ample opportunity for ominous metaphors in this unnerving study of adolescent estrangement. “One day, everything down there will surge up,” says Chihiro’s brother (Kiyohiko Shibukawa). Sullen and withdrawn, Chihiro loses himself in a modern dance class (led by Japanese choreographer Osamu Jareo) in which he and Naoyo (Hoshi Ishida) rehearse intricate movements around one another but never touch. Expression without connection becomes the catalyst for the violent emotional surge that transforms this into Hamaguchi’s River’s Edge. That it ends with “To be continued” suggests the film was intended as a rehearsal itself for something more.—Senior Public Programmer Paul Malcolm DCP. Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi. Screenwriter: Tomoyuki Takahashi. With: Shota Sometani, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Hoshi Ishida.