“Melodrama” has become something of a pejorative term for many of my colleagues, but I still see it as a neutral descriptor. The genre is associated with heightened emotions and blatant narrative contrivances; some viewers (and critics) scoff at these qualities, but I think they’re no more inherently silly than any of the tropes we associate with modern horror or action films. Moreover, I think they remain, when applied thoughtfully, useful tools for understanding the human condition. After all, who hasn’t experienced heightened emotional states at moments of crisis or epiphany? As for the narrative contrivances of melodrama, I believe they have the potential to make audiences realize how arbitrary so many social conventions that govern our lives are. For this reason, the melodrama will always have something to teach us, as new generations come to see through different conventions. No filmmaker understood this better than Rainer Werner Fassbinder, whose postmodern melodramas tore apart the illusions of postwar political optimism and heteronormative mores, but other directors who have emerged since his untimely passing have utilized the genre just as perceptively.
Hamaguchi then cuts to two years after Baku’s disappearance. We are now in an office building in Tokyo, and Masahiro Higashide, the actor who played Baku, now appears in the guise of a short-haired salaryman. After Hamaguchi presents a few details of his work, Asako enters. She works in a coffee shop next door to the office and has come to retrieve a coffeepot. Shocked by the sight of her old lover, she begins asking the man personal questions; only now is it revealed that this isn’t Baku, but a different character, Ryôhei. Hamaguchi follows up this melodramatic development with another one a couple scenes later, when Asako bumps into Baku again that evening outside a gallery showing another Shigeo Gocho exhibit. Is this deja vu, or a sign that Asako is meant to be with the familiar- looking stranger? Ryôhei ends up joining Asako and her roommate, Maya, at the exhibit, and the three make plans to meet again. Soon enough, and despite Asako’s trepidation, she and Ryôhei become a couple.
Directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi. In Japanese with subtitles. 120 min. Fri 6/7-Thu 6/13. Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, 312-846-2800, siskelfilmcenter.org, $11.
