2/Duo

Director: Nobuhiro Suwa, Nobuhiro Suwa

1997 / 90min / DCP

Suwa’s second feature, 2/Duo was originally conceived as a scripted psychodrama, then evolved into something very different once Suwa chucked his script and started from scratch, working closely with his actors to develop their characters in an approach inspired by the films of Jacques Rivette. The quotidian story of a young couple—a boutique saleswoman (Eri Yu) and an unsuccessful actor (Hidetoshi Nishijima)—and their foundering relationship becomes, in Suwa’s hands, a fascinating meditation on performance in everyday life, shot in an intuitive and searching style by DP Masaki Tamura. “A genuine sense of existential danger and possibility courses through practically every scene in this film, with casual joking sliding into aggression or an argument quickly dissolving into affection… Real and vital.”—Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader

New high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Nobuhiro Suwa and cinematographer Masaki Tamura.