Our House 
わたしたちの家 「Watashitachi no ie」
Running Time: 80 mins.
Release Date: January 13th, 2018
Director: Yui Kiyohara
Writer: Yui Kiyohara, Noriko Kato (Screenplay),
Starring: Waka Kasai, Yukiko Yasuno, Mario Osawa, Mei Fujiwara,
Our House came from Yui Kiyohara who made it as a graduation project for the Tokyo National University of the Arts Graduate School of Film and New Media where she studied under Kiyoshi Kurosawa. It took the Grand Prize at the Pia Film Festival 2017 and then went international as it played at the Tokyo International Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, and Berlinale 2018.
For a graduation piece it shows that Kiyohara has a strong talent for atmosphere as she creates a mood piece that centres on depicting two sets of females existing in the same space at the same time almost unbeknownst to each other. How does this work?
Well, the film starts off unexpectedly with a dance sequence involving all four female characters before zeroing in on two separate stories involving one duo or another, both of which are intercut together.
The first narrative we get to grips with is a coming-of-age story of Seri, a girl on the cusp of turning 14 who lives with her mother, Kiriko. The two begin arguing as Kiriko has a boyfriend while Seri cannot forget her absent father.
The second story concerns a middle-aged woman named Sana. She is an amnesiac. While on a ferry, she falls asleep. Upon waking, she has lost her memories. She ends up living in the house from Seri’s story only this time it is owned by Toko, a fellow passenger on the ship who takes Sana in. Initially on good terms, the two fall out due to Toko’s secretive nature and Sana meeting a man at a coffee shop.
Both films depict female relationships strained by the distance that the participants keep from each other as Seri resists being nice to Kiriko and her new beau while Toko tries to maintain a sense of mystery that Sana would like to wipe away. She gets the chance when she meets a guy at a café and he shows an interest in the house and reveals a connection to it.
With two sets of female duos who don’t ever really meet – Kiyohara filmed each duo’s scenes separately – their stories become interlinked by the space they exist in: the house.
Click to view slideshow.Aside from a few sequences on the coast, either on a ferry or on a beach/cliff, the central location of the film is an old house in a downtown area of a coastal city (Kure?). At one point, it was converted into a cigarette store judging by the shutters at the front, but the interiors dominate.
We see these interiors via Ozu-esque tatami shots and they show cushions, tatami (yes), low table, fusuma, and shoji, all of which give a lived-in feeling. However, the set dressing and colours are different depending upon which couple we are following, at times a warmer and lighter one one for Seiri and a darker more cluttered one for Sana. Despite these stylistic differences, both sets of women are often framed looking through or surrounded by the grid-like design of shoji, as if in a box. Then there are fabrics draped across the set to further separate the characters. Boundaries are common.
What collapses the barriers between the women in each separate story and what collapses the barriers between the stories, is the notable narrative aspect of the film, that men and their intrusion in a female domestic space destabilises the taut relationship dynamics. Their presence causes conflict that acts as a catalyst character growth. The house reacts with hostility at the climax as the lights go out and the characters in both realities scramble around in a panic in the hope that someone might save them and, in that panic, Seri does things that influences the world of Sana.
“I saw a ghost earlier. I can’t go upstairs because I’m scared.”
I’m not sure that I understood the climax and how the women can coexist in the same space but it suggested a multiverse. Up until then, the film had a horror atmosphere as noises from offscreen and low-lighting in areas created a sense of the uncanny that overtakes the safe domestic space. If there were more mould, dust, debris, and a greater sense of decay, this might be a good Kiyoshi Kurosawa set, a la Loft. That possibility was brought out by the rich atmosphere and the acting which is consistent in relaying each story, whether the domestic one of Seri or the existential mystery of Sana.
Through those consistencies and the atmosphere the film reaches for magical realism and attains it. There are beautiful images to be found with regards to a Christmas tree and the coast but the house also has many beautiful shots of its interiors done in very evocative lighting. It is not the most exciting story but the film is intriguing and the spaces that we are taken to show us that Kiyohara has a great eye for atmosphere as they set the imagination running and make the mind wander around the screen and the character’s lives.
This film is unique and Kiyohara is a talent to watch out for!