オン・ア・ボート 「On A Bo-to」
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 32 mins.
Director: Heso
Writer: Heso (Screenplay),
Starring: Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Ryo Matsuura, Nairu Yamamoto, Yuuka Nakao, Sayaka Wada, Anna Melody,
The constraints of the short film format invites a filmmaker skilled enough to sharpen the emotional stabs of the story as it ensures the drama is focussed on information and performances most pertinent to selling a scenario. Heso, his cast, and crew, take advantage of the format for On a Boat where the simple set-up of an ill-matched couple’s relationship imploding as they confront the issue of control. It becomes an emotional rollercoaster ride as the cast launch themselves into a cascade of cringe-inducing humiliations based on their polar-opposite personalities, and it is all told in a tight 32 minutes!
A mismatched married couple are caught between unpacking their belongings in their new home and preparing for a dinner party. The husband, Chu (Kiyohiko Shibukawa), lays cutlery. In. Exact. Order. on the fancy new dinner table HE bought. Meanwhile Sara (Ryo Matsuura), his wife who is 12 years younger than him, doesn’t care so much for making the home orderly and is all smiles as she enjoys the moment of laying claim to a new home she could never afford on her own and absent-mindedly puts her stuff everywhere, all while anticipating the arrival of her friends.
On the surface, their relationship could generously be thought of as a case of opposites attract. Chu is neat, Sara is messy. He is older and staid and she is young and freewheeling. However, the extent of their disharmony only becomes clear to us (and them) when four of Sara’s free-spirited female friends arrive and Chu’s control freakery reveals itself in his treating people like objects…
In plot terms, that’s about it. The screenplay is cleanly driven by clear and concise contrapuntal characterisation that constantly echoes the differences between these distinctive characters. All Heso and cast have to do is wind them up until the players come into conflict. Thus, viewers are invited to watch Chu’s controlling personality be tested as he has to endure chaos such as people hammering piano keys, chowing down on food he never offers, rifling through drawers with items he considers his alone, and ruining décor he has delicate designs on.
Kiyohiko Shibukawa is very good. His physical performance is both fascinating and funny. He sports a nebbish look and awkwardness that automatically makes him a figure of fun since he seems ineffectual surrounded by a whirlwind of women. The sour faces he conjures up scream petty and are chuckle-inducing to view but the more that things become chaotic, the more he displays rigid body language that suggests his self-control is being stretched thin. As the ladies hit Chu’s emotional triggers, they reveal his nasty side and petty grows into vindictive.
Ryo Matsuura is really good as his foil as the laughter dies and the tension rises. Bickering begins with fast wordplay between husband and wife and while Chu still gets his ego needled and he gets cut down to size, Sara shrinks. As things escalate, Matsuura’s face registers all of the emotional changes as the looks of assurance slowly vanish from her face due to her character experiencing doubt creeping in, the loss of her freedom as brought out over Chu and her contesting the ownership over the space of the home. Sara’s moments of embarrassment burn like acid and eat away at any humour due to Matsuura delivering heart-breaking looks of being crestfallen, her smile wilting in front of her friends. The emotional abuse leaves the sort of awful feeling that roils in the pit of your stomach as a subtext of domestic violence threatens to cast a pall over proceedings. But just as the film seems to hit its emotional crescendo with Chu getting physical, the dynamics swing again!
The film leaves a viewer breathless, both with laughter, a tinge of horror, and lots of surprise because the conflict keeps rising between the couple and their emotional journey often twists on a dime with shock moves. It has this dynamic because Heso and his cast and crew do a great job of distilling the character dynamics to their purest form so that they carry the story rather than having overdone plot. He relays everything with tight direction that doesn’t waste a second or a frame.
At first the camera is observational and shows character quirks, visual motifs of chaos and control and Chu’s humiliation as an older man defied by younger women – he is sometimes relegated out of focus, sometimes off frame, increasingly out of command. Then it becomes probing. Chu’s shifting reactions to being left out of the girl’s conversations are slowly zoomed in on, when Sara and Chu bicker over a wine stain on the table, the camera catches each character’s reaction with quick pans. Sara’s love of freedom gets the most theatrical moment in the film with a song and a sudden change in lighting. This is really exciting and energetic visualisation that mainlines the emotions the cast radiate while keeping things pacey.
As a full range of cinematic tricks are are meticulously made to heighten the dramatic intensity as the marriage collapses on screen in a spectacular moment that alters the tenor of the relationship irrevocably and blows open all notions as to who has control. There is a sort of release for the ending but one in which it feels as if a much larger story is about to begin as Chu and Sara reckon with the partner they never understood and the audience is left feeling so uncomfortable after seeing two people radically change. To take us from laughter to horror to contemplation and to keep the characters is quite a feat and Heso and his team do it with aplomb.
On a Boat was screened as part of Short Films Programme B at Osaka Asian Film Festival 2024 on March 02nd. It will be screened again on March 06th at Nakanoshima Museum of Art Osaka.
You can read an interview with the director here.