The lives of two young couples glance off each other in this lightly haunted tale of suicide, love and loss. Enigmatic and elliptical, manages to find some resonance on an emotional level, even when its deliberately loose and time-shifting structure makes the story difficult to follow. Despite its narrative shortcomings, the visuals from Chinese-born writer/director Du Jie – who makes his feature directorial debut here and also takes on cinematography, editing and production design duties – are as graceful and inventive as you might expect from an established cinematographer with the likes of and on his CV.
His love of imagery also explains one of the film’s major preoccupations: the taking of photographs and philosophical questions related to it. The cinematography is likely to be the main selling point for other festivals after its world premiere in Busan’s New Currents. At the centre of much of the narrative is a young man (Soichiro Tanaka) who has lost his keen photographer girlfriend (Mado Karasumori) to suicide.
Episodes involving the pair on holiday are woven through the story, which also charts what has happened since her death. The drama’s other chief focal point is the relationship between a pet shop worker (Minami Ohba) and her fish factory worker boyfriend (Seita Shibuya) who, near the start of the film, plan to wed after he unexpectedly finds a ring inside a fish he is gutting. This fable-like aspect introduces an otherworldly dimension to the film, as .