Tag: Manami Honjo

River (リバー、流れないでよ, Junta Yamaguchi, 2023) [Fantasia 2023]

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Some might say time stands still in the “peaceful” hot springs town of Kibune, but on this particular day it’s more than usually true in Junta Yamaguchi’s followup to the cult hit Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, River (リバー、流れないでよ, River, Nagarenai de yo). This time around, the staff of a hotel along with its guests find themselves trapped in an infinite two minute loop in which they retain all their memories but are constantly returned to where they were two minutes previously no matter what they do. 

Depending on the situation, two minutes can be an eternity or an instant (or perhaps it’s always both) and in this case there isn’t much you can do in such a short time. The hotel staff find themselves constantly running up stairs and through corridors trying to coordinate their actions while accepting that nothing is permanent and any changes they try to make to their situation will be wiped out in the next loop. A chef who is also apparently a science enthusiast cautions them against taking any rash actions seeing as they can’t know when time will start flowing normally again, though for some the opportunity to embrace guilty pleasures such as poking a hole in the shoji is too good to pass up. 

As for what’s causing it, no one really knows but as it turns out everyone has a reason they might want to stop time. For maid Mikoto (Riko Fujitani) it’s that she fears her boyfriend plans to move abroad to study French cooking while another pair of guests secretly wanted to ask each other favours but are having trouble plucking up the courage and a blocked writer consumed with guilt for having killed off a key character is glad he can finally take some time out only to be slowly bored out of his mind when faced with an eternity of nothingness. The irony is that people come to places like these precisely because they’re “boring”, free from the chaos and stress of their ordinary lives. Mikoto says as much while wondering if that’s why her boyfriend wants to leave, that he feels as if he’s stagnating in a place where nothing changes and time doesn’t flow and that while he could be “happy” here with her living an ordinary life there’d always be a part of him wanting more.

Still, having this additional time helps each of them find clarity and begin to resolve some of their worries and anxieties. Even if they had “more time” in the more conventional sense, they may never have been able to speak plainly but given the enforced constraints of the time loop in which they quickly run out of other things to do and are more or less forced to talk to each other, they are all able to come to some kind of accommodation with what’s been bothering them. The two male guests are able to clear the air after an argument, the writer comes to a new appreciation of his characters thanks to his own sense of despair being trapped in the loop, and Mikoto realises she’ll have to let her boyfriend go in the hope that he’ll circle back around to her in time. 

The complexities involved are unlike those in Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes given that time constantly resets so the only point of consistency is the initial position of each person though the infinite quality of the looping provokes an additional layer of existential questioning as each of the various protagonists is forced to ask if they’re really moving on with their lives or even notice that time is indeed flowing. The clue that something is continuing to move lies in the differing levels of snowfall in each of the loops hinting at the increasing depths of their despair as they realise that not even death might free them from the maddening cycle of repetition while accepting they’ll have to work together to figure out what’s going on and how to escape the loop. The farcical humour soon gives way to a more poignant sense of reflection but also to a renewed joy and excitement that the future might actually be fun too and maybe it’s less scary to go there than be quite literally stuck in the present for all of eternity.

River screened as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Until the Break of Dawn (ツナグ, Yuichiro Hirakawa, 2012)

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If you had the opportunity to reunite with someone no longer here for a single night, would you take it? The young hero of Until the Break of Dawn (ツナグ, Tsunagu) is beginning to wonder whether or not it’s a good thing to be able to converse with the dead, if some people regret their choice to meet again, and if it’s better to just move on accepting that there will always be unanswered questions at the end of a life. Arriving shortly after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Hirakawa’s moving drama is a meditation on grief and living with loss, but also on life and legacy and everything it means to be alive. 

High schooler Ayumi (Tori Matsuzaka) is being apprenticed by his grandmother Aiko (Kirin Kiki) to become a “connector” able to meet with spirits of the dead. As he explains to his potential clients, each person is allowed to meet only one other from the other side for one time only and should the deceased decline the invitation the petitioner will not be permitted to make another. If all goes to plan, Ayumi sets up a meeting at a fancy hotel where the pair can stay until dawn on the night of a full moon. Obviously this is not exactly a well publicised activity and the first customer Ayumi meets, Hatada (Kenichi Endo), is reluctant to trust him assuming it’s some kind of scam no better than an end of the pier clairvoyant despite repeated assurances that they accept no money and even the hotel expenses are covered.  

Tellingly, in the first reunions which we see the deceased does not tell the living anything they did not already know, Hatada claiming that he wanted to talk to his mother to find out where she put the deeds for their house only for her to tell him he already knows where they are and obviously had some other reason for wanting to see her. Even Aiko admits that she can’t be sure she’s really summoning the spirit of the deceased, Ayumi wondering if they really call someone back from the other side or if it’s more like the memories of a person who is no longer alive that have remained in the world are pulled back to together building a composite picture of someone as others saw and remembered them. He isn’t sure if what they’re doing is ethical, or if some people might wish they’d never chosen to meet again. The subject of another meeting, a young woman who died while presumed missing, is uncertain whether to meet her former boyfriend on hearing that he had spent the last few years waiting for her return realising that the her that had remained in him will die when he is forced to accept her death but deciding it’s worth it so that they both can achieve some closure and he can perhaps begin to move on. 

Moving on is something Ayumi is himself struggling to do, presented with the option of setting up a meeting of his own before he prepares to take over from his grandmother as the connector while meditating on the deaths of his parents wondering if he should meet one of them and simply ask why they left him behind. Meanwhile, he also finds himself proximate to death when a classmate is killed in a traffic accident, her guilt-stricken friend unknowingly asking for his services though for less than altruistic reasons worried her friend may use the service to tell others about their falling out. She’s fond of repeating the phrase that you regret more the things you didn’t do than the things you did though her reunion turns out to have a sting in the tail she may not have been expecting hinting at the bad outcomes Aiko had also warned were possible in such emotionally fraught situations. 

The conclusion that he comes to is to embrace the true nature of his calling as a connector hearing that Aiko only got the power from her brother (Tatsuya Nakadai) to keep her connected to the family while she later gave it to her son for the same reason only to harbour a sense of guilt that her imperfect instruction may have contributed to his death. Learning to see with his heart, Ayumi comes to understand that just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there discovering a source of comfort in the feeling of someone gently watching over those below while accepting that perhaps it doesn’t matter if the reunions are real or illusionary because their true purpose is to comfort those left behind. A gentle meditation on grief and living with loss, Hirakawa’s quietly moving film eventually makes the case for growing old happily with no regrets living to the full until the break of dawn.

Until the Break of Dawn streamed as part of Japanese Film Festival Online 2022.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Sumikkogurashi: Good To Be In The Corner (映画　すみっコぐらし　とびだす絵本とひみつのコ, Mankyu, 2019)

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Cute characters are ubiquitous in Japan and though many may associate them with merchandising aimed at small children, a more recent trend has expressly targeted dejected adults perhaps longing for an escape into a kinder, more innocent world. San-X has been at the forefront of this trend with its hugely popular merchandising lines often featuring characters who just want to take things easy and enjoy life such as the lazy bear Rilakkuma or the roly-poly Tarepanda. Featuring an entire cast of neurotic characters, Sumikkogurashi has been one of the studio’s most successful collections appearing on everything from stationery items to cookware and clothing. 

Sumikkogurashi: Good To Be In The Corner (映画　すみっコぐらし　とびだす絵本とひみつのコ, Eiga Sumikkogurashi: Tobidasu Ehon to Himitsu no Ko) is the franchise’s first animated movie and at just over an hour long is aimed squarely not at the regular adult audience but at small children (or perhaps the small children of the same overly anxious adults), taking inspiration from various international fairytales as the guys go on an improbable adventure to help a lost little duckling trapped inside a book. For those not already familiar with the world of Sumikkogurashi, the picture book-style narrators (Yoshihiko Inohara & Manami Honjo) introduce each of the characters who never speak themselves but communicate with each other through onscreen text mimicking that which appears on their character goods later interpreted by the narrators. The central theme of the Sumikkogurashi franchise is that each of the characters is intensely neurotic and has retreated from the world in favour of the relative safety of the corner of the room where they find solidarity with other similarly troubled souls which include a polar bear afraid of the cold, a shy cat, the remnants of a tonkatsu cutlet too oily to finish and his shrimp tail buddy, a bunch of tapioca pearls left in a cup of bubble tea, and a green penguin who is confused about their identity wondering if they are actually a lost kappa. 

It’s to Penguin? that the main drama belongs as he bonds with the lonely duckling who has come loose in a book of fairytales and wants to find out where they belong. Sucked into a pop-up book, the Sumikkogurashi guys find themselves taking on the roles of the main characters with shy cat Neko cast as fierce yet tiny warrior Momotaro, Shirokuma as The Little Match Girl forced to face the cold, Tonkatsu and Ebifurai no Shippo in Little Red Riding Hood, secret dinosaur Tokage as The Little Mermaid, and Penguin? thrown into the world of the Arabian Nights. Together they pledge to help Hiyokko, the lost duckling, find where they belong and hopefully some friends along the way facing their own fears as they go.

The irony is that the guys have to leave the corner and go on an adventure where they do not exactly overcome their fears but perhaps learn that there’s not so much to be afraid of, Neko for instance making friends with the scary demon who chases them to offer some “onigiri” (a minor pun) in return for the gift of dumplings rather than fighting him as in the Momotaro folktale, even if they obviously need to return to the corner in the end. The message is that no one is really alone, even if they’re lonely in the corner lots of other people are too and you can find comfort in all being lonely together. The simple, water colour-inspired animation style is a perfect match for the series’ “healing” aesthetic with its gentle humour and random puns appealing both to small children drawn in by the cuteness of the characters and jaded adults looking for a little comfort who are presumably the targets of the more sophisticated gags. A simple bedtime story, Sumikkogurashi: Good to Be in the Corner is filled with wholesome warmth that belies its neurotic premise as the guys find solace in friendship and kindness while contending with an unfamiliar and sometimes hostile world.

Sumikkogurashi: Good To Be In The Corner streamed as part of this year’s Nippon Connection.

Original trailer (no subtitles)