The incredible shrinking Japan

Abstract

Growth and shrinkage are two sides of the same coin—global restructuring of the capital that produces geographies of unequal urban development. This new reality goes beyond the attention of academics and policymakers, and is becoming a common narrative in Japanese cinema. This paper explores how Japanese contemporary filmmakers portray the problems associated with shrinkage, such as urban decay or the social and economic restructuring processes in Japan, disseminating it to a wider audience. This research study analyses two Japanese film-texts—Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s Sketches of Kaitan City (2010) and Sand-Il Lee’s Hula Girls (2006)—which serve to illustrate current trends of both Japanese urban shrinkage and cinema. The main objective underlying this analysis is to stress the relationship between cinema and urban space; and how the cinematic vision of cities helps to understand the complex socio-spatial processes from contemporary urban transformations.