Nobuhiko Obayashi
Nobuhiko Obayashi was a Japanese director, screenwriter, and editor of films and television advertisements. He began his filmmaking career as a pioneer of Japanese experimental films before transitioning to directing more mainstream media, and his resulting filmography as a director spanned almost 60 years. He is best known as the director of the 1977 comedy horror film House, which has garnered a cult following. He was notable for his distinct surreal filmmaking style, as well as the anti-war themes commonly embedded in his films.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
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Photo: 大臣官房人事課, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Defining films
Critical context
Nobuhiko Obayashi was a director often dismissed as someone whose works are “ultimately less than meets the eye.” 1 The purpose of this piece is to argue otherwise. On the contrary, Obayashi’s experimental aesthetics often served to illuminate the recurring themes of his works. They are frequently concerned with childhood, nostalgia, memories, reflexivity, the Second World War [1] in Japan, innocence, and the destruction of innocence. Each of his films, even the failures, contains a sense of…
Films by decade
