THE film begins like a romcom and ends with the camera romancing the lead, our man lost and not lost, but feeling like he is at a loss for words, for reason, for the right meaning to attach to life. If that sounds heavy and florid, it is because I, myself, am at a loss (terrifically) to describe what this film, And So I Am At A Loss by Daisuke Miura, is all about.
I can begin by saying here is a good film about “freeters.” The term “freeter,” or freeta (furita in Japanese), refers to anyone who does not have a permanent job. He is paid daily or hourly and, given the fact that he does not earn much to live independently, the freeter stays with his family and is an irritant and cause of anxiety for parents who want their children to have a life of their own. Fortunately, the film does not burden itself with this theme, which would have made the film ponderous.
Yuichi, our lead character, is more than a freeter. He runs away, according to his girlfriend, when a person gets angry and he becomes uncomfortable when others provide him with kindness. We see this happening immediately at the beginning of the story when Yu leaves in a haste when confronted about his lack of fidelity to Satomi. Instead of facing up to a mistake or braving a confrontation, he scrambles to gather his clothes in his backpack and dashes to the door, leaving a girlfriend alone and unsure of herself.
With his bicycle, he drives into the night and calls his childhood friend. He stays with this friend until this friend gets tired of Yuichi’s dependency and drives him away. Yu moves to another friend’s place, and, predictably, leaves that place.
Caught in a torrent of rain, Yuichi is our real nowhere man…till he calls his sister.
From hereon, the film takes on a different route: Yuichi, irritatingly flawed, grips us with his persona: the emotional cripple turns into an existential case. Rediscovered, kinship turns sour and engages regrets. The sister has her own baggage, after all, and Yuichi is like a luggage carousel not made to relate to any weight however much that burden circles before him like a hard lesson in life. He leaves his sister’s place and looks up another friend, this time one who works for a film production. Cinema cordons life. To this friend, Yuichi is cinema. Yuichi is film itself.
Cinema as a trope is imposed in the middle of the narrative and too self-consciously, and yet it works. Life is a movie. And Yuichi’s friend is living it vicariously while Yuichi is, to this friend, is living the life. Yuichi leaves; the friend readies his phone to capture the departure, a man slouching away from the camera. As Yuichi runs, the friend feels how this man he is observing has become so cinematic—kakoii or cool.
Back in his hometown, Yuchi sees a mother who is weak first but shows a newly found strength in a religion consoling those living alone. Unable to take this, Yuichi leaves home and encounters in a snowy night his father who has long abandoned them. Yuichi lives with his father. He is his father’s son, as Yuichi would discover. Or, is he?
Does Yuichi redeem himself? Is his life like the boring feel-good films that his father despises?
As Yuichi, Taisuke Fujigaya, annoying at the beginning but gaining sympathy from the audience later on, holds on to his silence like an armor.
Around him, people are ready to rage or poised to be candid with their critique of Yuichi’s attitude. Even Yuichi’s father is articulate about his life of not doing anything.
The last scene shows Yuichi back in the apartment he shares with Satomi. Will they be back in each other’s arms? What follows in that room is the most vicious confession ever made by a character in a love story. On the road, Yuichi walks. On the screen, his friend is shooting a film. Yuichi turns his head to us and smiles the smile of a pop idol—cho kawaii, as fans would put it. Just too cute. For the cineaste, the screen is talking: Godzilla on the wall and Nomadland on a building (before these, there were Yuichi and his father looking at the poster of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life). Then Yuichi looks at the skyscrapers around him, calling to mind all the glorious monsters that graced the screen and hugged buildings.
Outside of Fujigaya, there are two other major presence in the film, one of which is Harada Mieko, who plays the mother and has appeared in great films. She is unforgettable as Lady Kaede in Kurosawa’s Ran. The other, Toyokawa Etsushi, who plays the father, is a noted stage and film actor. He was compelling in Loft, directed by the other Kurosawa—Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the new master of the macabre and gore.
It is often said that if there is an existential man, then he lives in Asia, particularly in Japan. Yuichi in the person of this marvelous actor (marvel at his mastery of silences), Fujigaya—a product of Johnny’s, a management agency known for endlessly discovering men destined to guard the heritage of cuteness in Japanese culture—is the quintessential existential man who questions his being because, as we twist Sartre’s words, that being is in question.
And So I Am At A Loss is Miura’s adaptation of his own play. Interestingly, nothing stagey is brought onto the screen, except for the tragic and darkly comic the film offers in good measure. It was screened at the 35th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), which was held from October 24 to November 2, 2022.
My gratitude to the press office of TIFF for giving me, as an accredited film journalist/critic, access to the films.