Asako I & II
Director: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
2019 / 119min / DCP
Following up Happy Hour, his justly acclaimed epic of everyday life, Hamaguchi offers a different but no less quietly revolutionary vision with this pop romance that moves from youthful exuberance and delusion to mature circumspection and compromise, while keeping up throughout a magical tonal balance of wistfulness, comic buoyancy, and the ineffably heartbreaking. As a student in Osaka, Asako meets and falls in love with a drifter named Baku who one day drifts right out of her life. Two years later, working in Tokyo, she sees Baku again—or, rather, a young, solid businessman named Ryohei who is Baku’s double in every respect save personality. After initial astonishment, they begin to build a life together—but a twist in circumstances threatens to tear it all down, and forces Asako to confront her long, lingering love affair with a half-ghost fantasy.
Distributor: Grasshopper Film
Intro by Kogonada on Saturday, November 7th
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