This one doesn't build to a gut punch, it just sits with you in the quiet and lets the dread accumulate. Hiroshi Harada is the man who dragged Midori into existence, and he spent twenty-four years alone on this one, which means every frame is one obsessive's refusal to let the subject go. And the subject is child abuse and the Japanese family that closes ranks around it, handled without a single beat of spectacle or catharsis to let you off the hook. There's no plot machinery here, just people, the ones who hurt and the ones who learn to stay silent about it, studied until you can't unsee them. It's slept on because nobody markets a film like this, and because watching it feels less like entertainment than like being told something in confidence. Go in rested. Come out quiet.

Horizon Blue is a standalone dramatic feature about the mistreatment of children and broken households in Japan. Harada, the creator behind Midori, produced the film single-handedly, working on it over a span of 24 years. Rather than a light story, the movie puts the harm that can happen inside a family at the center of its drama.