Distance

Distance (2001) is a Japanese drama by Hirokazu Koreeda you can watch online on iFILM. Three years after a religious sect carried out a chemical attack on the Tokyo subway and then killed themselves en masse, the relatives of the perpetrators — not the victims — travel to the cult's abandoned compound at a lakeside to mark the anniversary. Arata Iura, Yusuke Iseya, and Susumu Terajima lead the cast.

Koreeda shot with minimal scripting, letting the actors find their way through the grief and the moral strangeness. The film screened in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2001. What makes it difficult — and worth watching — is the question it refuses to answer: how do you mourn someone who did terrible things? Stream Distance online on iFILM.