And Your Bird Can Sing

Film description

Boku, who sometimes loses the grip of reality, works in a bookshop with Sachiko, who does not really care to hide the love affair she is having with her boss. Shizuo is unsuccessfully looking for a job under the pressure of his emotionally instable mother. In their drift through life the characters will be brought together by furtive glances, failed dates, a pinch of spleen and the flickering air of all the sleepless nights.

In an honest and subtle way the director tells the story of an emotional triangle of young people who cannot take life into their own hands and for different reasons are afraid of engagement in serious relationships. The melancholic mood of this superbly photographed film hides a difficult diagnosis of the condition of young adults’ generation in Japan. The stars of Japanese independent cinema who appear among the non-numerous cast use temperate acting to render the nuances of complex relations between the characters. Another (after "The Light Shines Only There" by Mipo Oh) film adaptation of Yasushi Sato’s novels of the trilogy set in the harbour city of Hakodate, where emotions, rather than burst, vibrate in the slow rhythm of club music beats in the last lights of summer sun.

Jagoda Murczyńska