"I am big. It's the pictures that got small," Gloria Swanson declaimed in "Sunset Boulevard." In the Japan film industry, though, the pictures are getting bigger — gargantuan, in fact. Examples include the "Death Note" duology, the "20-seiki Shonen" ("20th Century Boys") trilogy, and "Ai no Mukidashi" ("Love Exposure"). Sion Sono's 237-minute love comedy. All have intricate story lines to go with their lengthy running times — and were hits.
So the omens look good for Setsuro Wakamatsu's "Shizumanu Taiyo" ("The Sun that Doesn't Set"), a turgid and overwrought, if enlightening, salaryman melodrama that runs 202 minutes.
Based on Toyoko Yamazaki's five-part novel, "Shizumanu Taiyo" is a lightly fictionalized examination of events surrounding the crash of a Japan Airlines flight from Tokyo to Osaka on Aug. 12, 1985. Caused by a faulty repair, this tragedy claimed 520 lives.