ロンサム バケーション 「Ronsamu Bake-shon」
Release Date: October 07th, 2023
Duration: 68 mins.
Director: Atsuro Shimoyashiro
Writer: Atsuro Shimoyashiro, Futoshi Nakano (Screenplay),
Starring: Takuma Fujie, Kyoka Minakami, Risa Sakata, Otono Sakurai, Taro Suwa, Yoichiro Saito,
Lonesome Vacation, the second feature from Atsuro Shimoyashiro, has the premise of the search for a mystery woman by a detective. Shimoyashiro subverts dark noirish story tropes and stylisation to make a deceptively simple breezy film that carries deeper themes of learning to love life and overcome loneliness as the central investigation turns into a vacation.
Our private eye is Eiichi (Takuya Fujie), a low-rent gumshoe with a rockabilly style working in downtown Tokyo. He is hired by his ex-girlfriend (of four weeks) from university, Kyoko (Kyoka Minakami), after she finds an 8mm film canister amidst her late father’s belongings that contains a recording of a beautiful young woman in some unmarked coastal setting. She wants to know the identity of the woman and the woman’s connection to her father. Having deduced the location from background details in the film, Eiichi and Kyoko head out to Miura Peninsula, Kanagawa prefecture, to find answers to a possible illicit love affair.
So far, so noir when it comes to story, but Shimoyashiro is not operating in that genre mode as he keeps the plot outline and sets it on the path of a laid back road movie featuring two offbeat character archetypes who uncover family secrets, all while sojourning along Japan’s scenic eastern seaboard and assorted tourist sites under a bright winter’s sun.
The mystery of the 8mm woman’s identity is minimal and solved through a couple of obscure pieces of evidence that show Eiichi’s deductive reasoning and reveal him as quite erudite. The case serves more as a catalyst for fateful meetings with multiple mystery women and a reclusive artist, all of whom are undergoing small relationship dramas that seamlessly inform the central couple’s own existential anxieties that flow underneath the main narrative and surface occasionally with a break in the case that makes Kyoko reconsider her father and how she relates to the people she loves and Eiichi reckon with how to live a worthwhile life.
It is neatly done. Effortless and the film continually resists genre as Eiichi use his wisdom and Kyoko use her intuitive knack for reading others to draw out stories of people coming to terms and learning to live with what they love despite disappointments and betrayals. It is done in evocative sequences such as small restaurants, in art studios, and during a romantic night-time beachside song sequence Shimoyashiro segues to, done in a style akin to Elvis Presley’s Blue Hawaii (1961), where Eiichi sings a melancholy song in the light of a fire and one of the women at the heart of the case starts dancing.
Echoic motifs in the setting and character development seamlessly help reinforce themes. The location has connections to the turbulent life of poet Hakushu Kitahara, Eiichi pursues being a gumshoe despite financial difficulties and Kyoko knows when to pursue a lead and when to leave it well alone when it risks upsetting a healthy status quo, and they subtly feed into a shifting relationship between the central couple as they admit to themselves what may be missing in their own lives.
A lot of the enjoyment of the film comes from the easy interplay between characters who are absorbing to watch.
It begins with our gumshoe, played by Takuma Fujie, who has his own unimpeachable style with his rockabilly dress sense, Elvis-like affectations, and an office (located above a standing bar named Kidofuji in Koenji (the setting for Shimoyashiro’s same-named short) which calls back to hot-headed Maiku Hama of the Kaizo Hayashi films. His older style out of step in a contemporary setting also nods to Elliot Gould’s Detective Marlowe in Robert Altman’s The Long Kiss Goodbye (1973). Eiichi is neither a brawler or a wiseacre, however, more a philosopher who can act as a good sounding for others while also having enough romanticism to drop into romantic rock ballads. It feels natural that his confidence and style draws people to him so he can draw out the truth and get to the heart of the case through the hearts of others but Fujie maintains an occasionally detached air that prevents him from being a creep or corny.
Kyoka Minakami as Kyoko has the potential to be a femme fatale but strays from the archetype. She blows smoke in Fujie’s face playfully and she is chic, equally as sharp as Eiichi but essays the character as thoughtful and considerate, a cool customer with graceful movements and the occasional flash of sass and sex that comes off as mature and feeds into the idea of her being considerate and a people person yearning to realise that potential to connect. The dynamic between Fufie and Minakami and smart writing makes believable the idea that they will drift together as they compliment each other in style.
At the conclusion of the case, the two manage to synthesise a heart-warming and romantic denouement – with a stunning image drawn from the peninsula – that is satisfying and cathartic. Uplifting even. A far cry from Shimoyashiro’s deliberately bitter debut feature The Modern Lovers (2019) which also featured a couple at a coastal setting, but one whose love coasts to ruin. It also strays from noirs that have a devastating despair over humanity and its corruption at their heart.
While this may be a well thought-out and skilfull play against noir genre tropes by Shimoyashiro and his team, there is a strong human element to it. On this vacation, characters confront loneliness and overcome it and in doing this the film achieves a warmth that should hopefully rub off on the viewer as they enjoy an investigation turning into a character building exercise at a holiday spot.
Lonesome Vacation plays at Nippon Connection 2024 on June 02nd.
The festival runs from May 28 to June 02. You can read more about the festival’s programme in an early preview and a fuller overview. Stay tuned for reviews in the coming days!