Films made by non-Japanese in Japan typically have a “stranger in a strange land” premise (Ridley Scott’s “Black Rain”) or are attempts at an “only in Japan” genre (Sydney Pollack’s “The Yakuza”).
“Kontora,” the second feature by India native and Tokyo resident Anshul Chauhan, would seem to fall in the second category, being a World War II-themed drama, of which many local examples now exist.
But Chauhan, who also wrote the original script, has brought his own vision and sensibility to the story of a rebellious teenage girl who discovers her dead grandfather’s war diary. The result is a film that transcends its Japan-specific subject matter to make more universal statements about the human costs of war.