Currently,
the exchange rate is 120-some Yen to the Dollar. It was something similar in
the mid-1990s. Although we know we should be adjusting in our heads, the sums
Rika Umezawa embezzles from her private banking clients still look staggeringly
high. It is hard to sustain such recklessness indefinitely, but Umezawa will
have a heck of a run in Daihachi Yoshida’s Pale
Moon (trailer
here),
which screens during the 2015 New York Asian Film Festival.
Umezawa
looks a far cry from John Dillinger. The former housewife has only recently
returned to the workforce, responding to the bank’s recruitment program. She is
attractive, but extremely shy and reserved. Her first inherited client, a
lecherous old tight-wad might have been troublesome for her to deal with, if
not for the intercession of his college age grandson, Kota Hirabayashi. Still,
she manages to sell him on a few starter investments.
In
the early days, Umezawa’s performance is quite promising. Yet, her husband
continues to patronize and underestimate her. Of course, he just assumes she will
accompany him when he is transferred to China, but she rather scandalously opts
to stay in Japan. After all, she has secret affair with Hirabayashi to enjoy.
She also redirected some of his Scrooge-like grandfather’s money to pay for his
tuition. That turns out to be the sort of thing that is hard to stop once you
start. Soon, Umezawa is falsifying documents and intercepting bank statements
to maintain her lifestyle. Meanwhile, her senior colleague Yoriko Sumi starts
investigating her suspicions, hoping to find something that would forestall her
forced retirement.
Moon has the obvious
feminist angle and the zeitgeisty financial crisis theme, but it is rather more
than either sort of issue-driven drama. Thanks to Rie Miyazawa’s absolutely
extraordinary lead performance, it is utterly impossible to pigeon hole Umezawa
as some sort of Thelma or Louise in a business suit. Although she has good
reasons to feel put-out, she is not a victim, but more of an existential
heroine. Eventually she will even question the soundness of fiat currency and
the legitimacy of Platonic reality. At that point, the third act takes a rather
strange turn, but Yoshida lays enough groundwork so that it seems almost
logical rather than jarring.
Miyazawa
owns this film lock, stock, and barrel, but her greatest competition for the
spotlight fittingly comes from Yuna Taira, who appears as the fourteen year old
Umezawa in flashbacks. The young screen performer has no shortage of presence,
yet still projects a sense of earnest vulnerability she shares with Miyazawa.
Admittedly, it is tough being a guy in Moon,
but Renji Ishibashi knocks us off-balance from time to time as the curmudgeonly
old Kozo Hirabayashi. There is also something compellingly sad about Satomi
Kobayashi’s performance as Sumi, a somewhat kindred spirit to Umezawa, who has
adopted the diametrically opposite survival strategy.
