NYAFF Report: A Stranger of Mine Review
The program guide entry for Japanese comic drama A Stranger of Mine notes that the film won four awards at Cannes last year while screening for over three months in Japan. And, honestly, in the opening minutes the obvious question is "Why"? As it opens there appears to be absolutely nothing remarkable about the film. Obviously shot quickly with a miniscule budget and a little known cast there doesn't appear to be anything to seperate this from a host of other low budget indie productions. But as the flm progresses and you get to know the characters more, as director Kenji Uchida's slyly observational sense of humor becomes more prominent, and as the action spools and respools, that early question lengthens somewhat to "Why not more?" Though it lacks a central chase motif A Stranger of Mine serves notice that Uchida could very well prove to be another Sabu, and that's high praise in these parts.
The film opens on Miyara, a young woman sitting alone on a park bench with everything she owns packed in a large duffel bag beside her. Obviously distraught Miyara has just walked out on her fiance after finding a lipstick smudged cigarette butt in his car and the life that she thought was secure has just fallen apart around her. She eventually finds herself fighting back tears while sitting alone in a restaurant when a young man calls her over to his table.
Now jump back to the beginning. Though the timeline is the same you are now following young salaryman Maki, a man every bit as heartbroken as Miyara following the departure of his girlfriend six months ago, a woman who walked out on him without warning just after he spent all his savings buying a new home for the two of them. We meet Maki's private investigator friend Kanda and quickly realize that Kanda was the young man who summoned Miyara over to his restaurant table to introduce her to his friend Maki.
As the heartbroken couple slwly fumbles their way through the opening stages of a relationship Uchida's sense of humor begins to make itself felt, and it's impressive to see. Bolstered by the awkward performances of his intentionally fumbling leads Uchida gives his comedy an amazingly human heart, we laugh not out of cruelty but because we recognize ourselves and it soon becomes obvious that uchida has a remarkable gift for observation.
But just when you think ou've got things figured out the film takes an unexpected turn. And then another. And another. Maki's ex-girlfriend shows up on the scene, shattering the mood for Miyara and following Maki's desperate pursuit of her departing taxi the film jumps back once again and we get the same timeline presented from the point of view of the detective, Kanda. And suddenly - seemingly out of nowhere and yet making perfect sense within the film - we have extortion plots, a femme fatale, a stack of missing money and a gang of angry yakuza. The film repeats two more times from two more perspectives following Kanda's segment, each time revealing more intricate layers, more unexpected surprises.
A Stranger of Mine will likely meet the exact same fate as Sabu's films on these shores - that is, be ignored entirely - for the exact same reasons. With companies here in the west fixaed on "Asia Extreme" they seemingly have no time for a film such as this one, a film built on subtlety, intelligence and humanity. While it is not a flashy film by any means it is the sort that just grows and grows and grows as it progreses until, while you are unlikely to point to any particular moment that makes it so, you exit the theater knowing that you've just seen something special.
