There
is nothing more tiring than depression. Nobody illustrates that better than
Terako. She sleeps away most of her days, waiting to act cute and shallow when
she meets her married lover. That is how he wants things to be. It is most
definitely problematic, but it is hard to judge him or her too harshly in
Shingo Wakagi’s Asleep (trailer here), which screens as a
selection of this year’s Japan Cuts, the Festival of New Japanese Film in New
York.
Terako
has good reason to be depressed. Her best friend Shiori recently committed
suicide and her lover will probably never be fully emotionally available to
her. That is because she met Iwanaga after his irreversibly comatose wife’s
accident. Clearly, he is still coming to terms with his wife’s state, but
enough time has elapsed for him to seek companionship or whatever.
These
are the sort of things Shiori always understood better than Terako. She was natural
empathetic, yet it was she who took her own life. Ironically, her exotic line
of work may have somehow taxed her psyche. Somewhat like the characters in
Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty, she
would sleep beside wealthy men in a non-sexual manner, to console them when
they woke in the night. That meant unlike Terako, she had to force herself to remain
conscious throughout the long dark hours of the soul.
Banana
Yoshimoto’s source novel and Wakagi & co-screenwriter Kai Suzumoto’s
adaptation are not called Asleep for
metaphorical reasons. It is a languorous film that shows its star, Sakura Ando,
in many states of repose and partial undress. Frankly, there is probably a
little too much of that. Granted, Wakagi is trying to instill a sense of inertia,
but the first two acts definitely have a vibe of stifling uniformity. However,
when Terako engages with Shiori in flashbacks and tentatively challenges
Iwanaga, the film is quite compelling. In fact, Wakagi more-or-less pays off
all our waiting with a terrific borderline magically real confrontation in the
third act. You just have to get that far.
Ando’s
performance is rather gutsy, considering how strictly she closes off her
emotions. Nevertheless, she vividly conveys all sorts of issues undermining the
young sort-of mistress. Arata Iura is just as restrained as Iwanaga. When you see
him walking with Terako, he looks like he might shatter if he tipped over.
However, the expressive Mitsuki Tanimura truly haunts viewers as the doomed
Shiori.
