Summary
Yamasaki Juichiro’s latest feature is a focused character study that subverts preconceptions of small town life in Japan.
It’s been a few years between drinks for filmmaker Yamasaki Juichiro, who filmgoers might know from previous outings The Sound of Light (2011) and Atarashiki tami (2015). With YAMABUKI, he returns to compete in the Tiger Competition at IFFR with a multi-faceted character piece shot in grainy 16mm.
The primary focus of the film is Chang-su (Kang Yoon-Soo), a former equestrian competitor for the South Korean national team. He now works at a quarry in the rural town of Maniwa in western Japan. Yamasaki uses this as a jumping off point to explore the vaguely interconnected lives of the
The titular Yamabuki (Kilala Inori), for example, stages silent protests in the town, holding up signs by the side of the road to her policeman father’s chagrin. She attracts a boy at school who is crushing on her, but more interestingly manages to bring a misfit community together in support.
Despite the title, Yamasaki seems less interested in the character of Yamabuki than he does with Chang-su. This is just fine, as the story of this constantly beleagured man is far more fascinating. Desperately trying to hold a family together, one that perhaps only exists as a matter of convenience, Yamasaki teases us early on with a windfall. Yet the unrelated whims of someone else quite literally crushes his plans, sparking a series of misfortunes that casts him as a kind of Sisyphean figure. Indeed, one incident forces Chang-su to lift a rock of sorts in order to get on with his task — and apparently not for the first time. “I guess I was punished for wanting a family,” he laments.
Yamasaki’s use of 16mm film not only casts the whole thing in a stylistic grain, but it lends a period aesthetic to a film that is very much a snapshot of contemporary Japan outside the big cities. It’s one of the few bits of flair (so to speak) that characterise an otherwise straightforward bit of lensing from Tawara Kenta.
YAMABUKI leaves us only a few inches from where we came in, which speaks volumes about Yamasaki’s observations on the area. While hours could have been spent exploring any of the misfit characters we encounter, Yamasaki’s laser focus is intended to subvert the idea of what a typical townsfolk might be. While it’s arguable that an even stronger narrative may have resulted from singling out one of the characters, Yamasaki’s voice remains a unique and fascinating one.
2022 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Yamasaki Juichiro | WRITERS: Yamasaki Juichiro | CAST: Kang Yoon-Soo, Inori Kilala, Kawase Yohta, Wada Misa, Miura Masaki, Kurozumi Hisao, Matsuura Yuya, Aoki Munetaka | DISTRIBUTOR: Survivance, International Film Festival Rotterdam 2022 (NL) | RUNNING TIME: 97 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 26 January – 6 February 2022 (IFFR)
