From
the needlessly apologetic, soft-spoken voice of its heroine to the almost
fetishistic maid uniforms she eventually dons, this strange three-hour film
clearly sets out to explore the far corners of Japan’s collective psyche. At
its core, it challenges viewer assumptions regarding what Nanami Minagawa
thinks she wants and what she needs. Yet, it also invites us to challenge its
right to make such judgments. It can be difficult and even cruel, but it is worth
engaging with the substance of Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Shunji Iwai’s
A Bride for Rip Van Winkle (trailer here), which screens
during the 2016 New York Asian Film Festival.
Minagawa
is a part-time teacher, whose mousy voice eventually gets her fired.
Consequently, she resigns herself to a housewife’s life married to Tsuruoka, a
fellow teacher she met online. However, the impending ceremony presents the first
of a series of crises he will face. Minagawa and her divorced parents simply do
not have enough relatives for the ceremony. In a fateful turn of events, she is
referred to the mysterious fixer Masuyuki Amuro, who regularly provides fake
relatives for weddings, among his other services.
Alas,
the honeymoon period will not last long. Soon Minagawa suspects Turuoka of
infidelity and turns to Amuro for help. Initially, the mysterious mastermind
stokes her doubts, while secretly framing her for an adulterous affair of her
own. Shamed, humiliated, and abandoned, Minagawa comes to rely on Amuro, even
working as one of his fake wedding relatives. That is how she meets the
free-spirited Mashiro Satonaka, who might be the first real friend she ever
knew. However, their relationship will be quite complicated.
Based
on Iwai’s own novel, the rather obscurely titled Rip Van Winkle can be reasonably construed as a tale of vicious
game-playing or unlikely empowerment. At times, the trials Iwai showers on
Minagawa are almost Job-like. Frankly,
some of Amuro’s darker moments are hard to reconcile with the more edifying interpretation,
but the ultimate destination is rather profoundly humanistic. In many ways it
directly compares to Tetsuya Nakashima’s Memories of Matsuko, but it does not leave viewers feeling so bereft.
As
Minagawa, Haru Kuroki is a like a radiant, exquisitely sensitive Candide. She feels
each injustice deeply, yet she carries on. It is a necessarily understated performance,
given her character’s painful shyness and meek voice. Yet, she expresses a vast
array of emotions with great depth and sincerity. Pop-star Cocco gives the film
a much needed lift as the wildly charismatic and outgoing Satonaka. She and
Kuroki develop some wonderfully rich and ambiguous chemistry together. Former
Japanese AV star Nana Natsume is also terrific as Saeko Tsuneyoshi, Satonaka’s
AV agent. Go Ayano’s Amuro similarly brings plenty of energy to the film, but
he is almost too inscrutable. It is hard to fathom why he inspires such trust
from Minagawa.
