Compared
to the Beijing Olympics and the Qatar World Cup, construction for the 2020
Tokyo Olympics has been a model of safety and integrity. Granted, one of socially
awkward Shinji’s few friends wrecks his back on the job, but he is still alive
to get depressed over it. Another will in fact drop dead, but that is a freak,
unrelated event. Yet, it will be an unlikely catalyst for him to cross paths
with the emotionally damaged Mika again in Yuya Ishii’s Tokyo Night Sky is Always the Densest Shade of Blue (trailer here), which screens
during the 2017 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.
Shibuya
and Shinjuku always look like Times Square on steroids in the movies. They are
precisely the sort of districts Mika and Shinji can’t stand, but somehow, they
frequently find themselves there. When they do, they often encounter each other,
but they are ill-equipped for romance. Legally blind in one eye, Shinji is
deeply insecure, which he tries to compensate for through manic, almost Tourette-like
outbursts. Mika is still reeling from her mother’s apparent suicide and
resentful of the former lover who dumped her, but keeps calling to profess his
love.
Her
work does not help either. She is an underpaid nurse by day, who moonlights at
a hostess bar. When Shinji brings his construction friends for a drink one
night, Mika rather perversely agrees to see his friend Toshiyuki instead, but
it will not last. Despite her standoffishness and frequently lashing out,
Shinji falls for Mika as their paths continue to intersect.
Tokyo Night Sky is inspired by and
derived from the poetry of Tahi Saihate, which can be heard during Mika’s
interior monologues and in snippets of conversation. It sounds precious and/or
pretentious, but Ishii integrates her verse surprisingly smoothly. Of course,
this is hardly a chatty film in the first place. Mika and Shinji are profoundly
lonely and alienated, but Ishii does not wallow in their misery. In fact, their
small breakthroughs here and there are arrestingly beautiful.
Relative
newcomer Shizuka Ishibashi is absolutely stunning as Mika, like a lightning
bolt out of the clear blue sky. She makes us feel acute sympathy, maddening
frustration, and everything in between. Likewise, Sosuke Ikematsu turns on a
dime from likable to pitiable, to just plain uncomfortable and then back again
as Shinji. It is their film by a country mile, but it is still hard to shake of
the dignity with which Tetsushi Tanaka portrays broken down day laborer
Iwashita, as he endures the indignities of life.
