Are Japanese films in decline? Not at the box office, where they still beat the Hollywood competition (with the huge exception this year of "Frozen"), but what about international festival invitations, awards and critical buzz? The answer depends on your perspective. For overseas festivals specializing in Asian, genre or animated films, Japan still looms large. But on those elevated planes where competition selections are made for the Cannes Film Festival and nominees are chosen for foreign language Oscars, Japanese filmmakers figure less in the conversation, and those who emerged in the current millennium figure hardly at all. That said, they and their elders still make films that challenge and engage, including the ones on my top 10 list for 2014.
1. Soko Nomi Nite Hikari Kagayaku (The Light Shines Only There)
Mipo Oh's uncompromising drama about two life-battered outsiders who find each other in the grittier parts of Hakodate, Hokkaido, is not an easy sit, with scenes that repulse as well as reveal. But the struggle of Chizuru Ikewaki's hard-nosed prostitute and Go Ayano's unemployed guy, with his drinking problems and dark past, to get to the titular light is powerful and real. Masaki Suda shines as the heroine's hyperactive, hard-to-read younger brother.