Asian Cinema Challenge 2023 | 21/52 | Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
Lately, I seem to walk as though I had wings Bump into things like someone in love. — Ella Fitzgerald, Like Someone in Love
In the wee hours of the early morning, at Bar Rizzo, Akiko speaks to her boyfriend, Noriaki, on the phone, assuring him that she has been truthful and that she is out at Café Theo with Nagisa. She agrees on a date if it will quell his suspicions. He makes her go to the bathroom and count the tiles so he can go later and confirm whether she was there.
Hiroshi returns to the table and tells her that her relationship with Noriaki will be her ruin. He mentions a proposition for the night, but she says she cannot because her grandmother left her a message on her work cell about coming into Tokyo for the day. But he reminds her that she has no choice—that this is for a man he respects and doesn’t want to let down.
So, Hiroshi calls a taxi and tells Akiko to sleep in the car on the way. Instead, she listens to messages from her grandmother, who gives updates on her trip and reveals that she has already come to Tokyo. She also mentions some cards of call girls at the station, one who looks like Akiko and one who looks like Nagisa.
Through these early context clues, we learn that Akiko is a sex worker and that she is on her way to an elderly client named Takashi. The film follows Akiko as she navigates her relationship with Noriaki and her experience with Takashi.
When you know you may be lied to, it's best not to ask questions.
One thing arthouse films get away with that conventional narrative films do not is telling an incomplete story. The arthouse audience knows that it is up to them — their experience, their interpretation — to fill in the gaps left by the filmmaker. As Kiarostami’s career progressed, he embraced ellipses ever more.
Here, the film elides identity, as people play other people, whether through intentional misdirection, misunderstanding, or through an arrangement. As the film begins, we don’t see Akiko, we don’t know who she is talking to, and we don’t know where we are. We only hear her and see the bar from her perspective. Similarly, when Hiroshi steps outside to make a call, we only see his reflection in the glass. Akiko says she is at Café Theo with Nagisa. One of those things is true, but we only learn later that Nagisa is, in fact, with her. But they are not spending time together — they are both on the clock as sex workers. Even that is never said outright, only suggested.
In Takashi’s apartment, they discuss “Training a Parrot,” a painting by Chiyoji Yakazi from 1900, noteworthy for depicting a Japanese woman in a Western style, perhaps the earliest such painting from Japan. Akiko’s grandmother told her that the painting resembled her. Throughout Takashi’s apartment are photos of people we don’t know (a daughter? a wife?) whom Akiko sees as resembling herself. Akiko grew up hearing that she looked like someone else.
And that is often the role a sex worker plays in the client’s life — to be like someone else. But isn’t it also the case for the client? They may wish to present themselves as someone they are not, or behave in a way uncharacteristic of themselves. Is it that Takashi wants Akiko to act like someone in love, or has he, through his encounter with her, become like someone in love?
Similarly, Takashi ends up playing the role of Akiko’s grandfather when he drops her off to take a test and encounters Noriaki. Noriaki assumes who Takashi is, and Takashi doesn’t contradict it. Beyond that, his many identities are wrapped in absences — a retired professor, a widow, even the grandfather role only works because Akiko’s grandmother isn’t there to contradict it.
Also in Kiarostami’s films, we experience reality shifting for the main characters, whether metaphorically, as in Where Is the Friend’s House? or Taste of Cherry, or more explicitly, as in Certified Copy or Close-Up. Often, the catalyst for this shift is an encounter with a stranger and a direction to go. Like most Kiarostami I’ve seen, the car is the locus of reflection and discovery. From the taxi, Akiko sees her grandmother still waiting for her as it passes by the station. Also, Noriaki speaks with Takashi in Takashi’s car.
Speaking of which, Noriaki is, in some ways, the audience surrogate, demanding answers to questions that no one is willing to give. He wants to be sure of Akiko and his relationship, and to know who she surrounds herself with. He doesn’t seem to question whether he and Akiko even belong together. But, due to the nature of her profession and her worries about what he would do if he found out, her life is a shroud of mystery.
Akiko’s grandmother’s voice is so sweet, my heart broke just listening to her talk! Watching Rin Takanashi listen to those calls and then look for her grandmother as they pass the station is so gutwrenching. And then she can’t help but talk about her grandmother to Takashi.
While not Kiarostami’s final film, it was the last full-length movie released during his life. And what a note to end on. I’m still unsure about the ending, but I can see how the film builds up to it. Still, I’m deducting a half-star because, as of right now, as much as I love the rest of the movie, the ending left me cold.
Man endowed with little experience…
Tags
torrentasiancinemachallenge2023asiancc2023criterionsolidarityslow-cinema
