11/7/2023 0 Comments Pale moon filmIt is here that you see the depths one will go to get what they truly desire. Based off the best-selling Japanese novel from author Mitsuyo Kakuta, the film takes audiences back twenty years to the “Lost Decade” (Ushinawareta Junen), following deregulations and the burst of the Japan asset price bubble. Turning from a husband’s indifference to the adulterous wants of a younger university student proves a treacherous and slippery slope for Rika (played by award-winning and celebrated Japanese actress, Rie Miyazawa). Released in 2015 | 126 minutes | Directed by Daihachi Yoshida With subtitles in English As dry humour and bitter insight give way to something much more subversive, it opens like a flower, alluring, delicate, and dangerous.Presented by the Cinetopia International Film Festival and sponsored by CJS Flawless central performances and a cool, observational approach from director Yoshida imbue it with a quiet power which gradually escalates toward an ending that changes everything. As we wait for Rika to get caught, with shrewd supervisor Ms Sumi (Satomi Kobayashi) never looking away for long, the narrative begins to morph in unexpected ways, ultimately inviting viewers to question what - and who - is real. Tales of financial misdeeds are not uncommon in Western literature and film, but Pale Moon is very different in that it never takes the easy route. She's living like a gaijin, living like a man. She's breaking every rule in Japan's strictly codified society. With her husband away in China on business, she lets her own place turn into a sty. Maintaining the illusion, she buys him clothes, pays for expensive meals and luxury hotels. She focuses only on the price he thinks about the cost, placing cash in a brown envelope beside the bed where they get together. "It is better to give than to receive," she thinks, reminding herself of her Catholic school's motto, so she 'borrows' money from the boy's uncle's account to pay him through college. Instead she goes with him to cheap hotel room and, perhaps for the first time in her life, takes something she wants.Įverything else seems to spiral from there, but the film's gentle pacing and Rika's generally conscientious nature remind us that in fact she is making a series of calculated decisions and there is never no other choice. She could confront him, this boy half her age. Just how much sacrifice do her bosses expect from her? As it happens, she's rescued by the appearance of the client's nephew (Sôsuke Ikematsu), but later she realises he's following her on the underground. We meet her first in the home of an older client whose questions get very personal, creating an intense sense of threat. She's quiet, demure, respectably dressed, even vulnerable around her clients. Rika (Rie Miyazawa) is not the sort of person you'd associate with criminality. It would seem such a little thing to borrow a bit of the bank's money and pay it back later. Imagine how much stranger that is when you are - in a largely cash-based culture - actually handling their cash, carrying it between their homes and the bank, perhaps stopping off at the shops along the way and having to poke around in your wallet for a few coins to cover the cost of your purchases. If you've ever worked in the service industry, you've probably experienced that odd sense of dislocation when looking after customers who are, for no clear reason, much better off than you - to the point where they seem completely unaware of issues like making the rent which dominate your life.
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