Opens with a short meditation on plant life, then gives us the POV of a train traveling through the countryside. It's very of its time artsy photography, which suits me just fine since I've always felt very comforted by cinematography from around this time.
Our main character, Masatoshi Nagase's Keisuke, is an actor in a samurai film, and he's really pretty good at it mostly. The trouble is, he doesn't seem to fit the director's vision for the film, while the moron star of the film does seem to fit. Our other main character, Akiko Mono's Eri, on the other hand, gets harassed by an obnoxious foreign weirdo with a camera, and she seems to have lost the ability to speak. The obnoxious foreign weirdo proves to be just *alright* later on, and sort of...manic pixie dream guys her around for a minute. In the end, the credits seem to confirm that he starts dating Eri's sister, which makes a lot of sense.
Incidentally, Hiroyuki Nakano is the director of the music video for Deee-Lite's Groove Is in the Heart, which is an incredibly good song. In a good way, this movie sort of feels like a music video.
This is relatively light on plot and structure. One of my favorite scenes was the brawl Keisuke's friends get in at the movie studio, which gets Kengo hired as an actor in the film. There's a thread running through this film of dedication to craft conflicting with other elements, like financial concerns or natural charisma. Kengo has natural charisma in spades, but it's Keisuke who's dedicated to improving himself as an actor. Of course, despite this, Keisuke only gets hired because of the leading lady finding him attractive. And, I mean, he is. But he also approaches the film more seriously than the director does. In the end, he improvises an absolutely wild ending to the film, just before they're about to run out of film.
Keisuke's new movie star girlfriend, however, starts clashing with him, in part because he's in love with somebody else. I really like her, and I feel bad for her because it's very, very clear that their romance is not going to last from the start, and largely for reasons she doesn't know about. But, of course, the breakdown of their romance hardly causes her to become mute, so maybe she's just not *the one*.
I also like the happier flashbacks. It's really nice to see how much love they have for each other, how they used to express it. How *easily* they used to express it. At the right time, it becomes easy again.
This really is a pretty lovely film. It's a romance about two people who are dating other people and doing other things.
That's a really strong 3.5 for me.
"But all the trees are dying. The future must be dark, right?"
alt. quote: "Good intentions always reach people."
alt. alt. quote: "Why don't you say something? I'm doing this for you! We can't live on dreams alone. Or did you find someone better than me?"
alt. alt. alt. quote: "I'd do anything for your smile." "Really?" "Yeah." "Even that?" "Huh?" "You know--that. C'mon, do it." "Again? Can't get enough, huh?" ["that" is imitating bruce lee in a full jumpsuit, by the way]
