MIFF 2025: Black Ox

Melbourne International Film Festival 2025 is ongoing and I went to watch my ninth session (of 12!)

This post my short review of the ‘Black Ox’

For context: I am a photographer/youtuber that wants to up my cinematography and storytelling, that’s why I’m watching 12 sessions at the film festival PLUS reviewing them here on my blog!

The director, Tetsuichirô Tsuta, was actually there! So cool. They had a short Q&A at the end. I loved hearing about his process on things. The movie started at 9:30pm and ended at 11:30pm, so some people didn’t stick around for the Q&A, which is understandable, but I of course stayed.

In my review below, I included some tidbits from the Q&A.

All image courtesy of miff.com.au

Structure

It had distinct 10 chapters to it. The film has hard stops in between the chapters with a chapter title card. This was also the case with the other B&W movie that I watched, Samsara. The main difference being, in Samsara, there is 0 spoken words, whereas in Black Ox, the supporting characters do speak, while the main character is mostly silent. That setup allows a level of immersion similar to playing video games like Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The main character is just moving around in the world and things happening to him, and he just grunts, nods, shakes his head. Obviously, minus controlling the character itself haha.

Moreover, the setup is the way I like to enjoy fictional narratives, where the story is not in your face. Instead, it is a bit more subdued and implicit. Hmmm, well, I don’t always like that, but I do enjoy it especially in video games — and again, the structure of this reminds me of one.

Narrative

The story is loosely based on the 10 commandments of Buddhism — that’s why there are 10 chapters! The main character is a “jungle person” in rural Japan, who doesn’t even speak Japanese. There was a scene early on the film where someone was talking to him in a non-Japanese language. Fun fact: During the Q&A, one of the questions was whether the language was real, and nope, it’s a made up language. And this was on purpose: to drive in the point that the origin of this man is a mystery.

The man shrouded in mystery then goes to live in 19th century Japanese society. By today’s standards, the 19th century is obviously not modern at all, but to him, it certainly felt like it. I think because it is set in the 19th instead of 21st century, it tells the story that even the basic structure of society back then seemed different — even unnatural — to a person that used to live in the jungle. The concept of money, tax obligations, and “work” — basically the pillars of capitalism.

All of that deep themes are sent across via a very chill and calming atmosphere. The whole film felt zen, especially with its sound design and cinematography.

Cinematography

This film was shot on 35mm and 70mm film. As mentioned, it was shot in B&W, which instantly makes it feel nostalgic and fitting for the 19th century. The location, which is the director’s hometown, looks amazing in B&W. It enhances the look of the textures, from inanimate objects like rocks, sand, water, and also the human faces and of course the black ox.

There were a lot of slow spans in the beginning of the film. I feel like it signifies the main character’s relationship with the world. He is attuned to the way the world moves, the way it weaves around him. The more he is integrated to the society, I think they added more static shots or faster moving ones. And it slowed down again in a scene where they zoomed in to the main characters face when he was meditating, slowly breathing in and out… it felt like the film inviting us to meditate with him. The way they did that shot is pretty cool. It was done throughout the film as well. There were a few shots that lingered more than it felt comfortable. So there’s this uneasiness at first, but then it becomes the new normal for the audience. That all added to the feeling of “chill vibes”.

Who would I recommend this to?

People who want to ground themselves. People who want to be reminded of the simpler times, simpler joys, simpler angst, simpler living. People who want to enjoy landscape shots of beautiful rural Japan. People who want to see how analog film looks like in the digital age. Lastly, I couldn’t believe I didn’t mention the ox up to this point, people who likes animals, especially pets. The ox reminded me of my cat somehow!