Watch Glasses For Free

Too much of everything

Let's be realistic.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Have you ever wanted to escape the banality of your daily, stressful routine and venture to an unreachable island? It's an almost universal desire – one which has been covered in a few different ways over the years in cinema. There is the light-hearted approach of traveling to an 'exotic' land, or lands like in the huge commercial success Eat, Pray, Love (2010). Then, there are tales which show a plan to retreat gone wrong such as the dark, independent film 'Martha, Macy, May, Marlene' (2011) or more well-known 'The Beach' (2000).Director Naoko Ogigami's black comedy 'Glasses' ('Megane' in Japanese, pronounced may-ga-neh) falls under a new category. The 2008 Sundance Film Festival entry is neither superficial nor dramatic and follows Taeko, a middle-aged academic professor, searching for a few peaceful days on an unnamed island. There's something charming about her destination but its inhabitants – who all wear glasses – have weird routines she doesn't appreciate.Arriving at the inn, Taeko's stiff modern image reflects her personality: she's an antisocial career woman who hopes that abandoning her phone connection will bring her the rest she's seeking. She expects to be served and pampered but instead is faced with characters who continue to invade her personal space.The inn's proprietor Yuji (Ken Mitsuishi) fails to pick up her suitcase as she enters and later annoyingly joins her for meals. In the morning an older woman, Sakura, stares at her while she sleeps to wake her up. Perplexed and surprised, she engages with them out of courtesy. Twilighting, an activity that seems to involve staring at the sky for hours and contemplating, is their favorite bizarre pastime.This is not her idea of a retreat, so she leaves. But sleep-watching Sakura goes looking for her and Taeko returns, realizing the island is not so bad after all, and finally drops her hostile attitude. It's somewhere here that a delightful journey of self-discovery begins.'Glasses' is the director's criticism of modern societies. The expressive cinematography; long beautiful shots of life's simple pleasures like watching the ocean, playing the mandolin, preparing and eating and good food, hypnotizes the audience into a contemplative state along with the film's characters.Visually, people and nature merge perfectly in this purposefully slow-paced film, Ogigami's seventh as director. Complementing the mesmerizing landscapes is a script bursting with absurd wit and dark humor.Unlike other films about escapism 'Glasses' didn't make the headlines for boosting tourism in Japan; this is not an attention-seeking picture. Spend 106 minutes with these characters. You might not jump on your computer to book a holiday but you may forget about life's troubles for a while.Find all of our film and festival coverage, as well as our events and education at www.DohaFilmInstitute.com. Follow us on Twitter @DohaFilm.

Some newspaper critics dismissed this as a simplistic new-age fantasy about yuppies that want a break from their hurly-burly city lives. To me they seem to miss the point.I'm one of those people for whom form is much more important than story. Megane is really beautifully shot: the colours, the interiors, the food, the arrangement of the main actors in each frame and the timing of their movements are obviously designed with great care and precision. Yet there is a story here too. It's not very complicated, but beautifully arched and perfectly paced. Like the best of classical music performances, if you make the effort to concentrate and connect you loose track of time and simply enjoy the here and now of the experience. Classical music doesn't 'mean' anything either, or at least it can mean very different things to different persons.The music in Megane, by the way, is often beautiful too (and sometimes downright weird). It doesn't dominate, but subtly supports key moments and adds a little spice. I particularly liked the occasional cello solo.There's little dialog dialog in the film, and the critics are right in saying that it isn't very profound (but occasionally very funny!). Sometimes though, more can be said by two people sitting silently in a quiet spot, watching a sunset and drinking the here and now than by the entire Iliad.

This film is the follow-up to the director's hit "Kamome Shokudo" but where that film succeeded because of its healthy balance of strangeness with beautiful sets, good acting, interesting characters and quirky humor, this film gets only the beautiful sets right and goes WAAAY overboard with the strangeness. A good example of this is the asinine dialog which makes no sense and sounds like each character is having their own conversation with someone off-screen, unaware of the other (onscreen) characters around them.Nothing happens in this movie and there is no exploration into the characters or the environment at all. In fact this movie is nothing more than a glorified screen-saver and would be much better as a slide-show of beautiful scenery, without the stupid characters. Add in some ocean sounds and I would be asleep right away and dreaming of watching a better film.

An easygoing film that is as satisfying as a refreshing sea breeze during a summer night at the beach. Impeccably done and acting that is superbly measured.The location is a small island near Okinawa. White sandy beaches and paradisaical transparent waters. A woman flies in and walks to a guest house near a beach. The place, called Hamada, is not easy to find but she does. It's Spring. Off-season. Hamada is operating but the woman is the only guest. The place is run by a cheery and nononsense man that is also the cook. Other characters include an older enigmatic woman that comes to help and a young teacher at a local school. We don't learn a lot about who these people are. This is fine for it lends a whiff of mystery, especially regarding the older woman.The film is primarily about the transformation of the young woman as she is drawn into the unhurried atmosphere that permeates the island and Hamada. She slowly succumbs to the local habits.Despite its slowness, it is never boring. Plenty of whimsical offbeat humor to keep us going. Also plenty of food on display. By the end I was hungry.