遠くへ,もっと遠くへ 「Toku he, motto Toku he」
Release Date: 2022
Duration: 107 mins.
Director: Shinji Imaoka
Writer: Kishu Izuchi (Screenplay),
Starring: Manami Shindo, Kaito Yoshimura, Hitomi Wada, Ippei Osako, Yohta Kawase,
In his latest work, Shinji Imaoka continues to put distance from his pink film origins by working with fellow prolific genre-hopping writer/director Kishu Izuchi (who also got his start in the pink film industry) to make Far Away, Further Away, an unsentimental yet humanistic drama that kindly looks upon two people discarded by their partners who pair up and go on a road-trip to Japan’s far north.
Early on Far Away, Further Away, our ever-cheerful main character, an aspiring interior decorator named Sayoko Ota (played by sprightly gravure idol Manami Shindo) breaks her happy-shiny persona and goes all serious as she recalls meeting an elderly couple earlier that day to her husband of five years, Goro (Ippei Osako). Ominously she relays advice they gave her: “A marriage is weaker without something in common. So it’s better to force yourself to make one.” This line, knowingly hinting at her feelings, presages a break in her relationship with Goro and sets up her meeting with a fellow heartbreak kid named Yohei Shitara (Kaito Yoshimura), a gloomy real-estate salesman whose wife Mitsuko (Hitomi Wada) walked out on him three year’s previously.
While Sayoko and Yohei both share the unenviable distinction of being dumped, the two deal with it differently as he wallows in self-pity, anger, and longing for his lost love while Sayoko, already on the verge of walking out of her relationship anyway, uses her pro-active and effervescent personality to push her new companion in singledom to embark on a journey to find Mitsuko that will heal his heart. This leads the two to her home prefecture of Hokkaido and culminates in a single sex scene, as expected with someone of Imaoka’s pink-film background, and catharsis as the characters get far away from what has wounded them. Getting us to this point of coupling is solid drama kept afloat by the scenic views of Japan and strong performances, especially from Manami Shindo.
The film sticks to a fairly conventional path by cutting between the two individual characters as they separate and rejoin each other on a journey that sketches out their cross-country milieu and also deepens their personalities.
As they venture from the dreary suburbs of Tokyo, through a rather miserable-looking Tochigi Prefecture, to the neon sparkle of Sapporo and its surrounding coastal and countryside environs, all the way up in Hokkaido, Yohei’s obsession with Mitsuko is gradually and naturally purged as Sayoko’s presence eases his pain and the complications of Mitsuko’s character comes into focus. Meanwhile a meeting with Sayoko’s quirky choral-singer of a mother adds a backstory that reminds audiences that she is more than a manic pixie dream girl.
This notorious character archetype is brought out by Manami Shindo’s physical performance with her smile ever-present, a skip always in her step, and cute phrases spilling out of her mouth as Sayoko cheers Yohei on. Undercutting the cliche is Izuchi’s writing which gives Sayoko convincing-enough career concerns that surface consistently in the narrative enough times that we feel she has her own agency and is more than just a character in service to Yohei’s growth. While Shindo excels as a nymph-like figure who might push the young man to let go of his pent up anger, she can also drop the sparkle of her smile and get serious to reveal an independent-minded young woman pursuing her own happiness.
Visually, the film is always full of character, especially when the pastoral and coastal areas of Hokkaido are shown via impressive widescreen cinematography. The final scenes of catharsis are wonderfully realised by taking advantage of a stretch of beach, caught in long wide-angle shots, where Sayoko and Yohei play in the sunlight and disappear into the distance while gripping on to each other and making plans for the future. It is a truly romantic sight that should be seen on as large a screen as possible for its visual beauty which furthers the finale’s feel-good impact as the characters, having travelled far away from their heartaches, look to get further away into a happy future together.
Far Away, Further Away played as part of the Osaka Asian Film Festival 2022.
Also, keep an eye out for the Osomatsu-san reference.