High
school crushes tend to be disappointing, especially if you get stuck with them permanently.
Maybe this plucky Japanese school girl should consider herself lucky to be
spared the popular Aomi. However, she figures a cute boy who can quote
Radiohead is worth fighting for, so she intends to take her shot in screenwriter-director
Yoko Yamanaka’s Amiko (trailer here), which screens
during the 2018 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film.
Social
media is not exactly a progressive force in Yamanaka’s film, but at least we
will be spared the kind of bullying and shaming horror stories that have driven
so many recent Japanese high school dramas. Amiko does not have a great many
friends, but she is relatively leveled headed. She is not engaging in sexual
activity either, though she might have some ambitions with respect to Aomi. He
is a disdainfully cool kind of kid, who hates playing on the soccer team, even
though he is their star player. Aesthetically, Amiko finds him totally dishy,
especially after spending one fateful day with him.
Their
banter was everything she could hope for, but they haven’t spoken since. She
hasn’t fully revealed her feelings to her bestie Kanako yet, but it is pretty
clear she is nursing a crush on someone. That is why Amiko almost feels
betrayed when he runs off to Tokyo, under highly disappointing circumstances.
The
way the film represents modern teens’ preoccupations and anxieties definitely
has the ring of authenticity, which is to be expected, considering Yamanaka
shot Amiko on the fly when she was
only nineteen-years-old. It also has some of the sad-girl-poetry excesses of
its demographic. Nevertheless, there is something appealing about its rawness
and lack of pretense. Even with the brief sixty-five-minute running time, Amiko has the stuff of a neo-neo-punk
cult favorite. Yet, despite all attention devoted to Aomi, the freshest, most
memorable aspect of the film is its depiction of her friendship with Kanako.
Aira
Sunohara is terrific as the title character. She can be both tart-tongued and touching,
even during the same scene. Likewise, Mako Mineo is quite endearing as the somewhat
naïve Kanako. The chemistry shared by her and Sunohara is totally convincing,
but it is hard to see why anyone would be so obsessed with Hiroto Oshita’s aloof
Aomi.
After
watching Amiko, we wish we could
introduce the titular protag to Izumi Kawashima, the sarcastic Daria-like heroine of About the Pink Sky. They share similarly
mordant perspectives, but Kawashima might have helped moderate Amiko’s consuming
ardor. It probably hits home with a bang for many teens, but for older viewers,
it is just a mostly amiable but rather rough around the edges amble through the
collective unconscious of Japanese youth culture. Recommended as much for Yamanaka’s
future promise as for its own merits, Amiko
screens tomorrow afternoon (7/29) at the Japan Society, as part of this
year’s Japan Cuts (and screens again this coming Tuesday during Fantasia).
