ひとりぼっちじゃない 「Hitori Bocchi Janai」
Release Date: March 10th, 2023
Duration: 135 mins.
Director: Chihiro Ito
Writer: Chihiro Ito (Screenplay/Original Novel),
Starring: Fumika Baba, Satoru Iguchi, Yuumi Kawai, Hirobumi Watanabe, Kazuyuki Aijima,
In Her Room is veteran screenwriter Chihiro Ito’s debut film. It is based on a novel she wrote and is an impressive achievement in style as it has an absorbing visual approach that gives a refreshing cinematic spin on a familiar story of a jealous lover learning to let go. This set-up is ripe for melodrama but In Her Room is the work of a writer/director who is in full control of her material and actors who are finely attuned to delivering offbeat performances.
We follow Susume (Satoru Iguchi), a boyishly handsome but unhappy-looking dentist. Judging by the way he is treated by patients, people, and life in general, he could be described as put-upon, ignored, ineffectual. His muted reactions to everything makes it seem like he is in a depressive state and just accepts the world as it comes, imperfections, insults, and all.
However, he has found someone who gives him relief from all that makes him anxious. Her name is Miyako (Fumiko Baba). She runs an aroma store and lives in an apartment that looks as if it has been overtaken by a jungle.
The set design, soundscape, and lighting of this location are striking and make it an ethereal environment. It is full of foliage, the sounds of water flowing, and, at night, flooded with purple and orange lighting. It is dreamlike and feels like a restful place where the outside world, an uncaring urban landscape that Susume suffers through, doesn’t intrude – a sensation enhanced by the enjoyably drowsy acting of the principal cast. Miyako’s door is always open to Susume and with each visit he becomes ever more enraptured by her gentle voice and soft ways that offer reassuring words and a warm and, eventually, erotic embrace.
Susume’s sultry idyll is broken when Miyako’s friend Yoko (Yuumi Kawai) gets intimately involved and begins to educate him on how Miyako’s door is open to other people. Our naïve protagonist soon becomes possessive over this woman of many mysteries.
When you know that Chihiro Ito is a long-time collaborator of Isao Yukisada, having penned films like Crying Out Love, in the Center of the World, you would be forgiven for expecting a drama with a more forceful tone, but that is not the case here.
Structurally, the plot is conventional as Susume works through his jealousy and Yoko’s mind games but audiences will find themselves carried along on a gentle flow of slow pacing and ambiguous characters. As Susume becomes more possessive and committed to unravelling the mystery of Miyako and why she collects people, he wanders deeper into the jungle in her home and encounters other possessive love hunters who toy with him. Tension builds but the performers remain relatively restrained in delivery. Ito indulges the audience in long takes and respects viewers to read into them and enjoy the experience of Susume trying to understand both Miyako and himself.
A sequence following the sight of a strange stageplay about a self-sacrificing giraffe is the most obvious it gets as a post-play conversation gets across how Miyako sees herself as an altruistic helper while a fed-up Susume readily admits disgust at the sight of people taking advantage of others. Aside from that, Ito confidently uses visuals and her cast to convey changing emotions rather than writing everything out.
Instead of exposition, Ito skilfully uses Satoru Iguchi’s rather drowsy acting and a few visual indicators in concise scenes of Susume’s everyday life to establish our listless leading man and his miserable existence. His boss at work drags him along to lectures and leaves him out of parties, taxis ignore him, he tolerates terrible service at a tacky restaurant (from a waiter played by director Hirobumi Watanabe) and, Susume’s shirt being the same shade of grey as a wall makes him blend into the background. At one point, a car runs over him as he lies prone in the street after falling over.
In contrast to the miseries, the relief in Miyako’s apartment is visceral and the turmoil Yoko’s interference and the jealousy that builds in Susume has even more emotional weight.
The film remains buoyed by the many interesting and eye-catching visual compositions of suburban scenes with blocks of colour and the use of overgrown foliage. Actors in conversation can be in the foreground and background rather than just the middle, a face can only be seen in the reflection of a mirror, and sometimes an actor is only present via a thigh or a leg. Slow pacing and the odd zooms in and out create an alternating creepy atmosphere of alienation and moments of dry comedy in the Aki Kaurismaki mould as an absurd moment gets dry delivery to net a few laughs. At times distinctive lighting and camera angles highlight Susume’s face and mainline his emotional crises and there is even an unnerving scene of CG and guttural moaning sound effect. There is always something odd or interesting or beautiful to engage with and this would make a mighty fine picture to see on a big screen.
Ultimately when Susume’s journey ends, we may not know everything about Miyako but our naïve protagonist has definitely grown up and we understand him a lot because these visuals – oftentimes eye-catching and beautiful – really convey what is going on. Meanwhile, his efforts to get to know Miyako, as symbolised by a wood carving he obsessively works on throughout the film, and the final, ambiguous result and his smile tells us that he has learned to let go of his jealousy.
This is a fine debut film that is enrapturing in story due to the absorbing visualisation Chihiro Ito applies which allows for well-drawn characters with involving lives, all done without a whole lot of exposition. Seeing it on a big screen would undoubtedly enhance its already great looks and the sense of getting lost in an offbeat, erotic, and strange experience. It is a complete contrast to Ito’s sophomore feature, the idyllic Side by Side, two different tastes of relationship dramas that are original.
In Her Room plays at NYAFF on Friday, July 28, at 18:00pm at the Walter Reade Theater, Film at Lincoln Center. It will be preceded and followed by an intro and Q&A with director Chihiro Ito and actor Satoru Iguchi.