2/Duo

A really wonderful and visceral pseudo-documentary with a distinctly Japanese twist. The film follows a boyfriend/girlfriend duo through a tumultuous period in their lives: the boy is an underachieving actor who wants to sleep all day, the girl is a depressed shop assistant. The film does a wonderful job of painting deep and complex characters without making anything too overstated. The characters barely talk to each other about their deteriorating mental states, instead talking to an unseen narrator about what they hint at with their actions. The whole fly-on-the-wall approach gives the movie an underlying tone of profound alienation and shows rather than tells the audience the negative consequences of the emotionally repression that's unfortunately so common in Japan. Viewers without firsthand experience of Japan might find something lacking, but everyone I know who's lived in Japan has thought the characterizations were eeriely accurate. Definitely worth the effort to track down.

As one of the most blunt and straightforward people you will ever meet, I could appreciate this film and its unique approach to partially documentary storytelling, but I could not say I liked watching it. Most of the time I was extremely frustrated with this Duo that, yes due to cultural and social upbringing and expectations in part, were doing practically everything possible to not communicate. Even so far as to communicate to an offcamera interviewer, much like the producers in the multitudes of competition and reality shows in this generation. Audience members will either fall under the spell of the film's mod and sadly watch the couple suffer the consequences of miscommunication, be constantly restraining themselves from yelling out, "talk to each other, not the film crew!", or a combination of these two.

Nevertheless, bravo to auteur director Nobuhiro Suwa for having the courage to film something so raw, intense, and unique with only his sophomore feature film. An impressive performance from the young Eri Yu (a pity she did not extend her acting career very far), and what a pleasure to see Hidetoshi Nishijima in a very early role (to be honest to see how he developed as an actor into what he is today, best known for his leading performance in the Academy Award Winning "Drive My Car").