No finer example of acting on film is needed now that Ms. Collette has given us her performance here in Japanese Story. What seems to begin as a culture clash film, winds through romantic comedy via road movie motif and delivers one of the more powerfully shocking twists put on film. It all works because both actors, Gotaro Tsunashima gives a magnificently balanced performance as Tachibana Hiromitsu, manage their roles by stripping the characters down to the raw essence of living.
To those who claim this film has no plot, clearly you need everything spelled out for you with big giant marking pens to understand a film. This films' plot is simply about life. Learning to live, experiencing life in all its joyous beauty and sad loneliness. And as Sandy's mother explains to us at the beginning of the film, death is part of life too. In the final shot of the movie I actually feel as if I knew exactly what Sandy was feeling at that moment, the aching in her heart. The change in her character from the person we meet in the opening sequences to that last shot is nearly as large and wide as the Australian outback. The film has some beautiful cinematography. The haunting shot of her face peering out of the pitch black, and receding back into the dark is simply magnificent. I urge people to go see this wonderful small, but moving film about learning, love, and life.
To those who claim this film has no plot, clearly you need everything spelled out for you with big giant marking pens to understand a film. This films' plot is simply about life. Learning to live, experiencing life in all its joyous beauty and sad loneliness. And as Sandy's mother explains to us at the beginning of the film, death is part of life too. In the final shot of the movie I actually feel as if I knew exactly what Sandy was feeling at that moment, the aching in her heart. The change in her character from the person we meet in the opening sequences to that last shot is nearly as large and wide as the Australian outback. The film has some beautiful cinematography. The haunting shot of her face peering out of the pitch black, and receding back into the dark is simply magnificent. I urge people to go see this wonderful small, but moving film about learning, love, and life.