Japanese Story Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)January 6th, 2004
JAPANESE STORY
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When the firm of Baird & Edwards is tasked with escorting a Japanese businessman on a tour of Australia's iron ore industry for mysterious reasons, owner Bill Baird (Matthew Dyktynski, "Love and Other Catastrophes") begs his partner Sandy Edwards (Toni Collette, "The Hours") to shoulder the burden due to his familial obligations. Disgruntled ("I'm a geologist, not a geisha."), Sandy nonetheless obliges and jumps into an extreme cultural clash that takes evolves in very surprising ways into Sandy's own "Japanese Story."
Director Sue Brooks pairs a screenplay (Alison Tilson) that is both horribly cliche and left-field twisty with stunning, symbolic landscape photography (Ian Baker, "It Runs in the Family") and a talented actress and leaves us vaguely unsatisfied. Fans of Toni Collette and alien environments will find this trip worth taking, although Sofia Coppola achieved richer results pitting both of her protagonists against Japanese culture in "Lost in Translation."
Sandy begins on the wrong foot with Tachibana Hiromitsu (Gotaro Tsunashima) - she is late to pick him up at the airport, doesn't return his business card with her own and shows her every aggravation and irritation. In turn, he gets drunk at a rowdy karaoke bar, constantly jabbers on his cell phone in Japanese (subtitles tell us 'It's awful. They've given me a woman driver, she's loud and aggressive. She has a big bum.') and imperiously makes outrageous demands without regard for his host country's advice. This last tendency results in the duo being stranded in the middle of nowhere under life-threatening conditions. Forced to band together for survival, the relationship's foundation shifts dramatically and a love affair evolves, but before it is allowed to deepen into something we can get a handle on, a uniquely off kilter event changes the entire trajectory of the story.
Collette gives a natural performance that keeps us engaged throughout the gamut of emotions her character undergoes. She gives her physicality a mannish aspect, befitting the no nonsense, rough and tumble lifestyle of an Outback geologist that makes for a nice contrast against Gotaro Tsunashima's handsome litheness. Yet despite Collette's work, the lovers remain an unlikely couple because although it is believable that Sandy would find beauty in the businessman's physical appearance, little is done to overcome those initial cultural differences (in fact, we see Tachibana's continued annoyance in subtitled voiceover when Sandy tries to teach him the difference in the pronunciation of desert vs. dessert). Furthermore, his character is made less honorable by the revelation of a wife and child after the affair has begun, although their existence is integral to the film's last, more affecting, act.
Baker's talent for showcasing landscapes is immediately apparent during the title credits, which unspool against Australian desert that looks like a Japanese sand garden on Mars, all brilliant autumnal red. He drops his subjects into the environment in a manner that accentuates their smallness, in one scene pulling focus for an alienating, mirage-like effect. The last shot of the film is a stunner, with Sandy looking out at an airliner whose nose is pointed back at her like a bullet. Original Music by Elizabeth Drake adds to the exotic atmosphere.
"Japanese Story" offers many terrific individual moments, but the vague definition of its central relationship keeps us at an emotional distance.
B-
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