The Sion Sono

'Something interesting comes from the rubble of conventions.' Interesting, of course, isn't the same as good, but Sono's 'quality over quantity' approach, repeated in an almost mantra like fashion here, explains his modus operandi and the wildly uneven output of his films. It takes balls to admit this, and it's a philosophy that isn't a justification for crap but more a kind of ethos that allows the potential for greatness or failure to arise from openly embracing risk.

Anyone who has seen HIMIZU, GUILTY OF ROMANCE, LOVE AND PEACE and NORIKO'S DINNER PARTY knows that Sion Sono is an artist (but one whose working motto is "quantity not quality", with the mixed results one would expect from such a strategy), and not a director working in the Cannes genre (as he says). Here, in the course of criticising film critics, he offers effusive praise for only one director: Lars von Trier (himself formerly a Cannes director but never a director in the genre of Cannes).