The Canary

If the writer-director, Akihiko Shiota, sometimes strains too hard for mythic import, his patience is a gift. As Yuki watches a blind woman fashion an origami bird, the characters' connection to a simpler, collective past is evident in every perfect fold.

It lacks the punch of Shiota's previous explorations of traumatized teen spirits, but the film still leaves bruises in all the right places.

In Canary, the audience is encouraged to sit back and allow sleepily serene scenes of quiet isolation to limit their opinions to tranquil tsk-tsks.

The Orient's relatively-eloquent answer to Eminem's 8-Mile and 50-Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin', replete with gangsta' rap on the soundtrack.