Am I Missing Something?

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This may not be as unique a film as Kiarastami's Close-Up, but just as a movie-watching experience I would rank this as my favorite of the director's works. I can't really say why exactly I liked the film so much, and that may be part of its magic. At one point one character advises another that to truly love another means not asking them any questions. To love, then, is to accept that the other may lead you down paths that you do not know you want to take. (And indeed you really might not want to take them). To love something is to accept that they or it might lead you astray, might lie to you. This film, I think, offers the viewer that choice. It invites you to love it, but ultimately takes you where you may not want to go. You're still better off, I think, for following it down the rabbit-hole.

For many Like Someone In Love may be a boring film to watch, but others are about to be engrossed by characters, their stories, interactions and even a drive through Tokyo. Or just be fascinated by the director's style. Or love the outside of main character Akiko (played by Rin Takanashi) and her appearance and hate her dilemma and inconsiderate duplicity. Or be engulfed in utter dismal sorrow at the treatment of Akiko's grandmother (played by Kaneko Kubota), which in terms of sheer emotional sadness is second only to Tomi Hirayama's life and death in Tokyo Story. Here is a film that in turn will induce absurdity, embarrassment, squirming, love, lust, hate, loathing, discomfort and pity. Akiko is a typical Tokyo girl. She is from Fukuroi in Shizuoka. She is pretty, has a fiancé and is in the city attending university. She, however, leads a surreptitious existence. We know this soon enough because we quickly put two and two together based on her conversation with her fiancé Noriaski (played by Ryo Kase) and the persons she shares a table with, a manipulative and filthy Hiroshi (played by Denden) and Nagisa (played by Reiko Mori). Foreign directors in Japan could go one of two ways. It could be a Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola–Grade: A) or a Map Of The Sounds Of Tokyo (Isabel Coixet–Grade: C). Look for sequences in Tokyo and Yokohoma including the entrance to Daisan Keihin Road and Aoyama Book Centre. This is not Adrift In Tokyo, yet the drive at night is so commonplace and yet simultaneously so pivotal. How could one not grade this film more like the former film than the latter? As the film opens Akiko is heard but not seen. This is the first of many intrigues in a story where most things are implied and perceived and not spelt out for us. Then we see manipulation and deceit in multiple back-and-forths. The story unfolds in real-time as a peculiar drama in which patience is a necessity. Should one persevere the film literally makes an art form of making the viewer guess what is going on now and what will come next. Images are seen as reflections, one overhears conversations being conducted off-camera and one listens for the consequences without actually seeing the incidents' instigators. There are a few sequences of levity as with Akiko's interaction with Watanabe's neighbour and the latter person's with her brother. The earlier almost-monologue itself is delivered with breathless conviction. Speaking of which, each of the admittedly few cast members exudes an amazing ability to make the acting look easy when it is anything but. After all, it is anything but given that the character-driven focus and a lack of special effects and graphics will have to hold our attention. Yet, they do and at length. Ryo Kase, in particular, delivers such a convincing performance that I for one could not have foreseen after seeing him in Hachimitsu To Clover. He might as well not have been an actor in a film, but a boyfriend being lied to by a woman in his real life ("I am not lying to you," she assures him as she lies to him) and deceived as usual making Akiko a shameless wench in more than one way playing it straight as the uncaring female type while Noriaski is as bewildered as any man who has lost a woman to dishonesty. Make no mistake about it. Like Someone In Love's honesty and cruelty lies in showing Akiko as a casual and professional deceiver as she only outwardly frets to not be one or be unhappy about herself and her actions. Her acting is natural and matter-of-fact perhaps practiced from the life of a modern woman.The film, however, disappoints many with its ending. Like the rest of this piece of art leaves much to the imagination of the audience. Using the word 'piece,' however, might be apropos given what the director likely wanted to convey at the end. Include in the disappointed group this writer. Likely a decade ago the joke would have been that the director and studio ran out of money. A more likely culprit is the Zen of Like Someone In Love. Zen is a Chinese Buddhist school that emphasized the now above all else. Earlier in the film Watanabe sings 'whatever will be will be' and alternately counsels Noriaski to let it go and advises Akiko to stop fretting and let things happen. As it turns out he is ignored and is wrong (in that sequence), but the director and writer's script direction is based upon emphasizing the present moment at every turn. Amazing as it is Like Someone In Love falls short because it assumes too much and does not give us a definite ending.Like Someone In Love is quite impressive in another regard. The grandmother is never properly seen, but even with the Japanese capacity to sadden, her part is dismal. She is an old woman in a strange town longing for love and family having left her infirm husband behind for a day only to connect and bond and what happens instead is as sad as anything one could see. The build-up is masterful. Akiko's cruelty to, among others, the older generation and the latter's patience is indeed alternately reminiscent of Tokyo Story and The Only Son and even more cruel because it is so easily rectifiable and generational. Kudos goes to the direction and cinematography which depict such loneliness all around in a metropolis of thirteen million. It should be noted – because of the earlier emphasis on the Japanese sensibility - now that the story and direction come courtesy of an Iranian in this Franco-Japanese co-production, which in the latter case makes it by happenstance related to one of Japan's most controversial films In The Realm Of Senses. Akiko a beautiful woman with such an ugly life, behaviour and personality, except that is how it is usually, isn't it?

Like Someone in Love (2012) is a Japanese movie written and directed by the great Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. Kiarostami brings his quiet, thoughtful style to a culture that is surely very alien to him. Japanese viewers may note cultural errors in the movie. My thought is that Kiarostami can look beyond cultural differences to universal themes.The movie, set in Tokyo, stars Rin Takanashi as Akiko, a young provincial woman who is a call girl. (She doesn't walk the streets. She works out of a bar, whose owner arranges the sessions at people's homes.) As the movie opens Akiko is facing two immediate problems. Her jealous boyfriend is on the phone, demanding to know where she is. Akiko is a college student, and her boyfriend is aware of that. He doesn't know that she's a prostitute, but he can sense that something isn't right, and he suspects her of cheating.Akiko's grandmother is visiting Tokyo that day, and desperately wants to see Akiko. Akiko would love to meet with her, but the bar owner is adamant--she must go out on a call to an important client. The client is Professor Takashi Watanabe, played by Tadasi Okuno. Akiko has no choice but to ignore her grandmother and visit the professor's apartment.Prof. Watanabe is a gentle, lonely widower. He has prepared a special dinner for Akiko, and he's playing Western music. (It's Ella Fitzgerald singing "Like Someone in Love.") It's more like a seduction scene than a paid sexual encounter.Akiko spends the night at the professor's home, and he drives her to the university the next morning. It's at that point that the film takes a different turn, because Akiko's violent boyfriend confronts her on the university steps. All of this action takes place in the first third of the movie. In the remainder of the film, Kiarostami continues to explore this unusual and somewhat threatening love triangle. This interaction among three very different individuals provides a fascinating look into human relationships. Where these relationships will lead isn't always obvious or predictable. I enjoyed this intelligent, thought-provoking movie. It will work well on DVD. It's worth seeking out and watching.

I had never before seen a film by Abbas Kiarostami. But he is an esteemed film maker, having won a Palme d'Or in Cannes, and Iranian directors have quite a reputation, so I thought I could enjoy this movie. How wrong I was. The most appropriate word to describe this film is annoying. It consists of extremely long shots with a static camera, confusing dialogue, and distracting side stories that don't serve any purpose. I have nothing against slow movies, in fact sometimes I like them a lot. But in this movie, the director seems to make all possible efforts to make everything as least attractive as possible. The audience has to endure slow conversations about whether the lead character resembles someone on a painting, or about the crush a woman has had all her life on an aging neighbour. That would be tolerable if it served any purpose, if it added something to the story or the mood of the film. But it doesn't.The camera registers a day in the life of Akiko, a student who secretly works as a call girl. She ignores her grandmother who calls her to have lunch during her visit to Tokyo, but instead visits a bar and takes a taxi to visit a client, although she is supposed to prepare her exams. By pure coincidence, the client meets her boyfriend, who doesn't know about her work, and her secret life is exposed. All this in a few excruciatingly long and slow scenes. Of course, there are people who argue that this kind of film deliberately denies the rules of mainstream movie making. It's different, and we're not used to that. Why does everything have to serve a purpose? Why can't things just happen because they do? Just like in real life? And why are we annoyed when these things are filmed with a motionless camera, instead of with fast edited, slick camera movements? True. It can be quite refreshing to see directors moving away from what movies are supposed to look like. But in this case, it felt too much like showing off. By trying to do his own thing, Kiarostami neglects the needs of the audience. The best thing about this movie is the Ella Fitzgerald song it's named after, which is featured on the soundtrack.