Summary
An emotional, and often disarmingly strange, journey about the bonds of friendship, dealing with grief and learning to move on. In other words, it’s a Daigo Matsui film. Presented as part of our coverage of Fantasia Festival 2021.
Daigo Matsui has made a career on the camaraderie of high school groups. From the Daily Lives of High School Boys (2013) through Sweet Poolside (2014), Our Huff and Puff Journey (2015), and Ice Cream and the Sound of Raindrops (2018), his oeuvre has a line-through about the enduring nature of these friendships. After all, Japanese Girls Never Die.
Returning this time to a male perspective, REMAIN IN TWILIGHT (くれなずめ) is a continuation of that theme. Six friends — Kazuki Yoshio (Ryo Narita), Tetsuya Akashi (Ryuya Wakaba), Taku Sogawa (Kenta Hamano), Taisei Tajima (Kisetsu Fujiwara), Yusaku Mizushima (Rikki Metsugi) and Kinichi Fujita (Kengo Kora) — who hung out together during high school get again after 5 years for a friend’s wedding. The thing is, Yoshio has been dead for some time, but continues to stand by their side as though nothing has happened. It seems Japanese boys never die either.
As the sextet practice their dance routine for the wedding, a cheeky routine involving not much more than a red loincloth, they reminisce about seminal moments in their past. There was a high school skit they performed that meant so much to them. Yoshio’s unrequited relationship with school crush Mikie (Atsuko Maeda). A fateful night involving a missed shinkansen. These vignettes are presented without context, which some may find jarring, but such is the nature of memory.
Set over the course of 12 years, Matsui’s use of longer takes allows us to really know these characters. It’s almost imperceptible at first, but we soon realise that we’re watching lengthy set-pieces with very little movement between scenes. We seamlessly segue between a reception area, a karaoke bar, and the alley of a fancy hotel before we become aware that these long sequences have just been there to let us in on what makes these characters tick.
As Matsui leapfrogs through the years, an equally gradual shift in tone begins to take place. As we learn more about the fate of Yoshio, a sense of loss and tragedy creeps in. It’s telling that when we see how each of the men first learn of Yoshio’s death, in a flashback to five years earlier, then are all living separate and very different lives. I have to admit that I got genuinely emotional during this part of the film, especially as the group proactively tries to deal with their grief.
Of course, Matsui has saved one massive final tonal shift for the end of the film, a sidestep into the surreal that I will not spoil here. It’s a joyously silly moment that literally and figuratively allows the remaining five men a chance to push away their past and finally give up their guilt and grief. For all of its weirdness, it’s also a somehow perfect ending that doubles down on the emotional denouement while leaving us with a refreshing sense of catharsis.
REMAIN IN TWILIGHT is screening as part of the 25th Fantasia Festival running 5-25 August 2021.
2021 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Daigo Matsui | WRITER: Daigo Matsui | CAST: Ryo Narita, Ryuya Wakaba, Kenta Hamano, Kisetsu Fujiwara, Rikki Metsugi, Kengo Kora, Atsuko Maeda | DISTRIBUTOR: Tokyo Theatres, Fantasia Festival 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 5-25 August 2021 (Fantasia 2021)
