Matt Cooper Films

Lonely Glory (2022) by Keitaro Sakon

When she loses her job, a young woman moves back in with her siblings and attempts to sort out their lives for them. Haruka (Kokoro Morita) is a confident, forthright businesswoman, appointed as a leader at the counselling company she helped found. Due to her overbearing attitude, she is accused of workplace harrasment and asked to leave the firm by the CEO. When Haruka’s mother dies, her siblings are faced with difficult choices. Her eldest brother wants to continue running the small shop owned by their parents, while also pursuing a younger woman he wants to marry; her sister Miwako (Eriko Nakamura) is unhappy at having moved home after a divorce six years before, leaving behind a daughter; while Haruka’s younger brother, Takuji (Haya Nakazaki) is long-term unemployed. Haruka’s get-up-and-go attitude sees her clash with her siblings as she tries to force them to make tough decisions, pursue their romantic interests or start businesses of their own.

A fun take on the family drama, setting up a sibling rivalry and tension between the different world-views and characters of the four adult children. Writer-director Keitaro Sakon’s “Lonely Glory” tackles familiar problems among families, such as how to best carry on their parents legacy; dealing with relationship problems; lack of motivation; and different perspectives on how these issues should be addressed. Kokoro Morita gives a great central performance as Haruka, garnering sympathy in her attempts to help her family, while at the same time being brash and pushy, a black sheep in a family who would rather not disturb the status quo. There is a subtle tragedy in the background to the narrative, highlighted when the family give only cursory congratulations on learning it is Miwako’s birthday. It seems they are siblings who have little interest in each other’s lives, to the extent of not realising when one has a birthday. Keitaro Sakon’s direction captures the family dynamics in the way the characters seat themselves around their ramen shop; and the active camerawork helps bring us inside their lives.

Like a placid lake disrupted by a stone, Haruka’s return to the family fold sees their comfortable lives disturbed, with dramatic consequences. Haruka comes to have doubts about her businesslike approach to life, realising that she is overly demanding of others. She is constantly active and wanting to solve what she sees as problems, while the family are more bound by traditions of not rocking the boat. While Haruka’s actions largely lead to positive outcomes, we are left to wonder, along with Haruka, exactly what her own happiness would look like and why she has this restless energy to improve herself and those around her. This unique family story will resonate with people who have ever had a difference of opinion or approach with their siblings.

Matt Cooper Films

And Your Bird Can Sing (2018) by Sho Miyake

Tasuku Emoto plays a part-time bookshop employee who falls for one of his co-workers, Sachiko (Shizuka Ishibashi). He seems unfazed by Sachiko’s ongoing relationship with their boss at the bookshop, beginning an affair with her. When Sachiko is introduced to his room-mate Shizuo (Shota Sometani), the three of them begin hanging out together, the lines between friendship and romance becoming increasingly blurred.

Based on the novel by Yasushi Sato, the film was shot on location in Hakodate and the northern city plays a starring role in the film as we follow the characters through late nights and early mornings, the quiet streets, tramlines and telegraph poles a permanent fixture in their lives. While it might be described as a love-triangle, the central tension of the protagonists relationship rarely bubbles to the surface, instead the film delights in subtlety, with stolen glances, or moments of contact left for the audience to decide what the characters are thinking. There is a conflict between the characters’ apparently nonchalant attitutude to romance and each other and the audiences desire to see them express some deeper emotion. The central cast do a great job with these complex characters, believably lackadaisical and directionless young adults, far from the typical romantic heroes of film.

“And Your Bird Can Sing” is a slice-of-life romantic drama that brings us into the world of three lost souls who manage to find a degree of stability through their unconventional relationships with one another. These highly relatable characters with their insecurities and halting attempts at romance are enjoyable to watch, the audience almost being an unseen participant in their lives as Sho Miyake’s intimate direction brings us into the heart of the drama. For the most part the film’s style and tone reflect the ambivalent, carefree attitude of the protagonists, rarely forcing the plot, and instead allowing the characters to simply live and experience the world around them. The film waits until its final moments to give the audience a degree of closure, with the characters finally giving voice to their unspoken feelings. The slow pace and lack of a conventional plot may alienate some, but the film succeeds in creating intriguing protagonists and a believable world lacking the familiar surities of more run-of-the-mill love stories.

Matt Cooper Films

Follow the Light (2021) by Yoichi Narita

Having moved back to his father’s hometown in rural Akita, Akira (Tsubasa Nakajima) is struggling to make friends at school. One day on his walk home he sees a girl standing on the roof of a farmhouse. The girl, Maki (Itsuki Nagasawa), has been absent from the local middle-school after attacking a fellow student and has no apparent desire to return. Akira also makes friends with a bullied student called Tamura (Kyohei Shimokawa). After a UFO sighting above the town, Akira, Maki and Tamura find a crop circle in the field nearby Maki’s home. The middle-school is due to close soon due to lack of students and funds.

“Follow the Light”, directed by Yoichi Narita with a screenplay by Narita and Yu Sakudo, is a plaintive love letter to the rural magnificence of Akita. Alongside the beauty of wide wheat fields there is a sadness that the community seems to be slowly drifting away. Akira’s father (Taro Suruga) and Maki’s absent parents both represent this desire of many to leave behind the quiet country life for the opportunities of Tokyo or other large cities. A side-story involving the homeroom teacher (Rina Ikoma), who also dreams of leaving the town, further adds to this sense of a community that is slowly disappearing as people move away. A beautiful, groaning, melancholy score perfectly captures the sense of scale and unease, the natural beauty alongside the characters ennui and longing for something more.

The film works simply as an ode to this region of Japan, highlighting the stunning vistas of Akita, with magnificent sunsets blazing over golden fields of crops. It also raises questions of community, with the students and teachers being microcosms of wider society, some desperate to escape what they percieve as a mundane everyday life while others cling to their hometown, desperately searching for some way to continue there. The film’s science-fiction elements, the UFO sighting and crop circle, are in fact more thematic tools to emphasise this sense of something intangible and ineffable that characterises the community. It is almost a meta-reflection on the film’s own themes that remain subtle, using the individual character journeys to tell a broader story about the problems faced by such communities. A meaningful tale of small-town unease and the tensions that exist in such places.

Matt Cooper Films

A Girl in My Room (2022) by Natsuki Takahashi

After breaking up with his girlfriend of two years, Yo (Riku Hagiwara) is surprised to find another young woman (Shiori Kubo) in his room. However, his new guest turns out to be the ghost of a previous tenant who died there and whose spirit is tied to that apartment. Unable ot remember her own name, Yo names her Aisuke. After attempting to speak to the realtor about this unexpected turn of events, Yo finally comes to accept Aisuke’s presence and the two begin hanging out together. Yo’s co-worker suggests employing her aunt, a psychic, to perform a rite to drive Aisuke out of the apartment. But Yo’s burgeoning feelings for Aisuke leave him conflicted.

Written and directed by Natsuki Takahashi and based on the manga by Chugaku Yamammoto, “A Girl in My Room” is a charming, light-hearted supernatural romantic comedy, setting up a perfect odd couple in Yo and Aisuke. There is a poignancy to their relationship, seperated as they are by the line between life and death, but the similarity in age means that for the most part we have a conventional love story. We see Aisuke advising Yo on where he went wrong in his last relationship, while Yo tries desperately to come up with a solution to this unexpected occurance. The two actors have great chemistry together, with their spirited conversations being a highlight of the film. Riku Hagiwara’s hapless romantic lead learns to care for Aisuke in a way that he was never able to with his previous girlfriend. He also has some great comic moments with the realtor (Shohei Uno) as he attempts to explain his situation. Shiori Kubo (a member of girl-group Nogizaka 46) is charismatic and entertaining as Aisuke, with her regional dialect and casual manner. The plot develops in a familiar way, but with the lingering sense of unease about Aisuke’s eventual fate.

As romantic ghost stories go, “A Girl in My Room” provides us with plenty of heart and laughs. It sticks close to the two protagonists as we see them grow closer to one another, learning what it means to care for someone. The film was shot on location in Onomichi, highlighting the charm of this city in Hiroshima prefecture. Essentially a twist on a traditional romantic comedy, with two characters thrown together by circumstance, the film’s casual, understated tone makes it a relaxing watch for fans of the genre.

Matt Cooper Films

A Muse Never Drowns (2022) by Nozomi Asao

Sakuko Kizaki (Miku Uehara) is a member of her high-school art club along with her friend Emi Otani (Kokoro Morita) and talented fellow student Hikaru Saibara (Kogarashi Wakasugi). While the group are out sketching at the docks, Sakuko is knocked into the water. Hikaru paints the flailing Sakuko and the picture is hung up in the school stairwell and praised for its quality. When Hikaru asks Sakuko to model for a new portrait, she is at first unwilling, not understanding the reason for her classmate’s interest in her. Meanwhile, Sakuko is being forced to pack up her things at home as her family, her father (Yota Kawase) and his new heavily pregnant wife Satomi (So Hirosawa), are moving out. Believing she has little talent for art she bags up her sketches and drawings, but soon finds a new creative outlet, collecting bits and pieces from the things they are throwing out and constructing a boat from the discarded scraps.

“A Muse Never Drowns” is a beautifully composed film, with each element helping drive forward the themes of growth and creativity. From the first moment we see Sakuko sketching the boat, to the final moments when we see the wildly creative construction she has made from junk, we see her develop in a way that is relatable and believable. Writer-director Nozomi Asao focuses on the relationship between Sakuko and Hikaru, creating an incredible depth of emotion between them. The power of their scenes is in the subtle everyday concerns that are driving them, anxieties about their own talents, and fears for the future, as well as uncomfortably new feelings of affection. The performances of Miku Uehara, Kokoro Morita and Kogarashi Wakasugi are note perfect, reflecting their immaturity alongside a growing sense of self-confidence and yearning for independence without veering into melodrama. Sakuko’s home situation is likewise understated; she has a good relationship with both parents, but with an underlying tension due to the loss of her birth mother. Asao’s use of visual and narrative metaphor works well without being too obvious. Some great examples of this are the fantastical boat that Sakuko constructs from the broken pieces of her home; and the sequence in which we see this home being demolished. Characters occassionaly philosophise on life and relationships, but the script manages to work in these more poetic moments with the characters and situations.

A coming-of-age film that expertly weaves plot and theme together in its tale of young women confronting the future and themselves. Sakuko is typical of many young teenagers, having been passionate about something, but later realising that there are more talented individuals out there. Hikaru, who seems to Sakuko to be achieving everything she wants, is also anxious about the things she is unable to attain. Together they are able to see life more clearly, finding solace in each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and reassess what it is they want from life. They come to realise the importance of creativity and constant reinvention. We learn early in the film that they are the only two who have yet to submit their applications to higher education, emphasising this sense that both are lost and unable to see the path forward. They have spent so long trapped in their own hopes and anxieties that they are unable to see that they need to change in order to progress. The film ends with this positive message that people are able to change, to adapt, and to reinvent themselves constantly in order to face a world that can be full of unexpected disappointments. A wonderful coming-of-age story that is sure to resonate with audiences young and old.