Nikkatsu
Directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Criterion Eclipse)
A popular host of a TV show grows bored of his fame, rigid schedule and beautiful manager. Their relationship of two years is strictly Platonic, though they struggle with it and claim to be in love. One day he decides to leave it all behind when he meets a woman who claims to be in "pure love" with a man she has only conversed with for two years through letters. He takes her up on a challenge to drive a jeep across the country to the rural location where her doctor boyfriend lives. His manager/lover follows him, as well as an entourage of cameras filming the whole thing for the TV show. The trip ends with the two couples resolving their differences, but in entirely unanticipated ways. A multi-layered film with interesting symbolism, insightful commentary on fame and the media and the meaning of love in the modern world. Shot mostly on location in the same hand-held style that characterizes Kurahara's other films, a sort of Japanese variation of the Nouvelle Vague.
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