April Story 四月物語 (Shigatsu monogatari) [1998] • Japan

A sweet slice of life portrait of a girl's transition from a high school in Japan's northern countryside to university in Tokyo. It's a series of vignettes that begins with her family seeing her off and ends with a reveal of why she went to this particular university. In between we watch her move into her new apartment, cook meals for herself, meet her neighbors and classmates, buy a bike, and browse a bookstore. It may not sound like much but it's very well crafted. Takako Matsu is as endearing as can be. It was a pleasure to see her, as a teenager, play this naive young girl after having recently seen her, at thirty-two, play an archetypal Japanese woman in Villon's Wife.

This is a short film, at just over an hour, that doesn't attempt much more than capturing a few moments in the life of a girl who is not only changing her outward surroundings but also following her inward desires. The reason she chose to go to the university in Tokyo is because her unrequited crush on a boy one year her senior is attending it. The film could have been longer and explored their relationship but then it wouldn't have ended as poetically as it does right at the moment they meet. Broken umbrellas, a rainstorm, and a barrel full of young love, idealism, and hope. Simply beautiful.

★★★★

Director: Shunji Iwai
Starring: Takako Matsu, Seiichi Tanabe, Kahori Fujii, Rumi, Kazuhiko Kato
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Ritual (Shiki-Jitsu) [2000] • Japan

One thing is for sure, this film has some of the most gloriously thought out and constructed set designs ever. A lot of the film takes place in the young girl's "apartment" which is about the size of an average K-Mart. Each room is like a different department but it doesn't seem strange once you give in to the world Hideaki Anno has created. Anno comes from years working in Anime so his visual imagination works on a different level than most. Why not have the girl sleep in a bathtub in a big empty basement that's constantly and willfully flooded?

This is a beautiful film with lots of stunning photography. When the couple are outside they're usually hanging out on or near railroad tracks, creating all kinds of wonderful lines and framing. The cinematography may not be something that grabs you but the composition of shots will.

On the downside, the story is standard "crazy free-spirited girl captivates man" stuff with a little "here's what happens to victims of abuse (real or imagined)" thrown in. The dialog and philosophy get a little precious from time to time, neither of the two can really act—they're just supposed to be attractive cool people (they are)—but Anno makes the best of their limitations. It's fairly easy to spot the scenes where the girl, Ayako Fujitani, (who wrote the original novella the film is based on, cowrote the screenplay, AND is Steven Seagal's daughter!) is left to her own devices to be charmingly a little off kilter versus the ones where she is supposed to act a scripted point of story or character development. I don't mean to dis her too hard because she is an interesting soul to spend a couple hours with. No doubt. Shunji Iwai (real life director of a number of highly rated Japanese disaffected youth films, most notably All About Lily Chou-Chou), who plays the guy, a film director (!), isn't given too much to do or say. He's just intrigued by the girl so he hangs around all intrigued and artistically stressed. He's less of an actor than Fujitani but equally as cool and worth spending a couple hours with. This is definitely an indie/arty bag of ennui, but it does do some interesting things and even goes all Dogme 95 for a scene at the end.

You can watch most of this film at the YouTube

★★★★★