夜を走る 「Yoru o Hashiru」
Release Date: May 13th, 2022
Duration: 125 mins.
Director: Dai Sako
Writer: Dai Sako (Script),
Starring: Tomomitsu Adachi, Reo Tamaoki, Nahana, Shohei Uno, Yutaka Matsushige, Tsutomu Takahashi, Yota Kawase,
Drive into Night is one of a number of very specific films that sets out to examine the idea that Japan is on the decline and has a junk yard as a major setting. Make the Devil Laugh and Ninja Girl are two other examples.
All three films share similar themes but have different styles. Make the Devil Laugh is a straight drama while Ninja Girl uses deadpan comedy. Drive into Night offers a noirish narrative that, for the first two thirds of the film, houses a grim character study of deadbeats desperate for any diversion from their dull lives. However, it does not sustain this and goes wayward in its final third that overloads the narrative with incidents, characters, and ideas that don’t quite stick.
This noirish film set in a small Japanese city in Saitama Prefecture. Its two protagonists are prime noir characters as they start in bad positions and keep making dumb decisions that make their lives worse.
We are first introduced to Taichi Akimoto (Tomomitsu Adachi), a 40-something sales agent at a scrap metal plant who still lives with his parents. His calm demeanour and diligence make him a good employee. However, he suppresses his emotions to such an extent that he presents a blank mask to the world. Unable to talk any amount of game, unable to stand up for himself, unable to show any sense of motivation or presence, he is a hollow man who meekly accepts the cruelty of others, especially from Hongo (Tsutomu Takahashi), a brutish and preening bully of a boss.
Juxtaposed against him is his friend Taniguchi (Reo Tamaoki), a more outgoing man married to a beautiful woman (Nahana) and father to a charming daughter (Ameri Isomura). He shows a sense of humour and a little ambition and yet he is dissatisfied with his life as he ignores his home, his daughter, and his unfaithful wife. Instead, he keeps a mistress and cultivates a desire to humiliate Hongo in some way.
On a drunken night out, Akimoto breaks from his shy and retiring act and tries to get the number of a young businesswoman who visited their worksite earlier in the day and had the misfortune of meeting Hongo. It goes disastrously for Akimoto. Sick and tired of being harassed by men, the woman rejects him. Harshly. With a dose of humiliation. Unexpectedly, Akimoto strikes her. The blow is hard enough to render her unconscious. The situation deteriorates further and Akimoto and Taniguchi wind up having to dispose of a corpse. This is when Taniguchi hatches a plan to frame Hongo…
This could be the set-up for a taut crime story where the increasingly risky actions of the characters see them enter a criminal demi-monde while revealing the moral malaise of a nation where various systems and industries exploit various groups of people. However the film has ambitions of existentialist examinations as Akimoto and Taniguchi undergo transformations that see them switch personalities and then lose those personalities completely.
It starts off promisingly as the world of the characters is richly realised and the killing feels a natural offshoot from it.
For most of its run-time, the story smoothly integrates various social issues into the story organically by having the characters impacted by them. Immigration, a sluggish economy, faithless lovers, bullying, neglected children, an ageing society, and crime are all experienced by Akimoto and Taniguchi at the scrap metal factory or at home as they struggle to balance working long hours at a job site that is on the verge of going bust and decompressing in hostess bars populated by yakuza and foreign women. Meanwhile the way that the men treat the women and foreigners also speaks to misogyny and xenophobia. You truly get a sense of dissatisfaction with what little is on offer from smalltown life and when Akimoto blows up it feels both shocking and inevitable after seeing him put down so many times. All of the injustices shown on screen form an interlocking weight that presses down on the characters until they burst.
However, tensions and ideas become diffuse as the storylines spiral outside of what happens to the corpse to include Akimoto’s brush with a cult. While it features a fun turn from the actors it doesn’t quite stick the landing as the film meanders while it tries to tie everything in together. Add to that, Akimoto experiences supernatural visions of the murdered woman and alternate reality versions of himself (the director speaks on this in an interview). The former technique works while the latter is clunky.
The narrative is slow going but when the truth of what happened is finally revealed , it is disturbing and all of those dark ideas add up to a disturbing picture. Ultimately, at the end, it feels like the film is full of interesting parts that don’t coalesce into anything satisfying but the range of ideas is always interesting. Indeed, this range allows the film to achieve blackly comic moments based on incongruous imagery between normal life and the spiralling behaviour of characters, especially Akimoto as he loosens up and subsequently acts in a more bizarre manner while the more outgoing Taniguchi becomes grimmer. Seeing the desperate lengths Akimoto will go – disguises and subterfuge – to to join the cult makes for some grim chuckles.
If the writing doesn’t quite hold up, the acting does. With a topflight cast in small roles including Shohei Uno as an oily cult leader, Nahana as an unhappy wife, and Yutaka Matsushige (The Guard from the Underground) as a Zainichi gangster and Yohta Kawase (Being Natural) as a police detective. With them, the film holds a viewer’s interest. You can also see Ameri Isomura (Side by Side) and June Kudobera (The Burden of the Past).
Tomomitsu Adachi (The Sower, Domains, and Hold Your Breath Like a Lover) is a fine actor who can transform into various people and he really steals the show here as Akimoto. He goes from a nebbish loser with a disquieting empty personality to an unhinged cult member and further. He relays the changes in the character very well while keeping hold of the darkness, guilt, and frustration that motivates him and keeps our interest in how he will develop. A late dance sequence her performs in the film is really electrifying and brave.
Also, the film always remains visually impressive. Director Dai Sako mixes up his shots to keep the film moving gracefully, often using lateral tracking shots to give a sense of the place and pans to further explore settings. The locations are authentic and give a general sense of despondency, especially through the subdued colour palette.
While the film fails to maintain an atmosphere of suspense it is mostly a solid story that does have something to say about smalltown life and the pressure people face. If it had excised the cult subplot (as well-acted as chunks of it is) and stuck to workplace drama and the crime, it might have allowed for a more taut storyline where the pressures build up into a memorable ending. That written, we wouldn’t have had as many good performances or ideas to get involved with which is the film’s real strength rather than being a thriller.
Tomomitsu Adachi won the Best Actor Award at the 32nd Japan Film Professional Awards for his role in this film.