Akihabara is pretty famous, I’d go as far as saying it is world famous amongst the right type of person – my kind of person. A few years ago, there was an incident there where a man drove a truck into a pedestrian crowd and then started to stab people, leaving a total of 7 dead and 10 injured. In a country with relatively low levels of murder, and violent crime, it was quite a shock and it has affected a few of the industries that rely on the area. Those industries are what I would consider Japan’s strongest pop-culture assets – games, anime and manga[1]. Traditionally, the area grew up as a “radio” district where electrical goods, often black market, could be bought which then developed over time as Japan developed a thriving and innovative electronics industry. This developed further into an area where the videogame industry could develop and that is where I got my own personal interest from.
The film, River, tells a story starting with the Akihabara massacre as its simple exposition, but is about something more than that.
As the film starts, we trail a young woman, Hikari (played by Renbutsu Misako), for an extraordinary opening shot – tracking her walking through Akihabara, not particularly quickly, for about ten minutes. As you follow, in the handheld style, you get a sense of the place and also a strange voyeuristic curiosity. There is no further explanation through dialogue, just a few explanatory subtitles about the area. After a while, she is seemingly lost in thought, if not physically, she rests on a road barrier[2]. Approached by a photographer (female) who requests her photo (“Not for any suspicious reason”), this is an opportunity to explain her reason for coming into this part of town. Her boyfriend had been killed as part of that Akihabara massacre, three years ago, and she had been travelling from Saitama (a district neighbouring Tokyo, to the north) over the past few weeks to try and move on by getting “closure” – something that she had not done.
The film finds her coming back and meeting different people within the area and eventually, by connecting with these people, the film is able to progress.
As a film, I found the opening strangely compelling – it is a very long shot as she walks from the station to the junction she stops at and it is done as one continuous shot. The film is fairly low budget and so it is clear that the film is being shot, as is, with one take, and no extras[3]. It lends an immediacy to the whole thing and although the film is fairly short at 90 minutes, there are still quite a lot of long takes with little seeming to happen. I continued watching after the opening feeling aware of the documentary style and also that it really did feel as if we were just following this girl about. A lot of the film is literally following her about and it is a camera style that some may find off-putting but I really like. It, for me, evokes memories of 3rd person perspective videogames and feels very well suited to the location of the film.
There are some nice little vignettes of life in Akihabara and also in Saitama, where she meets an old friend who is excitedly getting ready for her new boyfriend – and a starring role in a porn film. I found it interesting as the friend had not seen her for three years and seemed less than concerned about that – and the fact that her boyfriend had been killed. The film ends with a visit for another character to the modern wasteland that Fukushima[4] became – again shot as it was without any further post production or apparent staging. The destruction is breath-taking, it really is. I have seen it before, but it still hits you hard when you realise what a developed town could be turned into.
It is quite difficult to judge River as a film, it is pretty contemplative and the narrative element is not strong - but it is not really meant to be. The protagonist has locked herself away for so long, and this is just showing how she has let herself be able to move on. As a film, I enjoyed it but that may partially be a personal connection. It isn't that long anyway, so maybe you would like to watch a slow contemplative film. Or maybe not?
Here is a trailer:
1. There is a word in Japanese, otaku, (お宅), which is used to refer to the kinds of people that are really into anime, manga and games which is usually used, in Japan, pejoratively. Outside Japan, it seems to have been claimed as some type of badge of honour, however, to describe those that enjoy those same things. The word itself actually means “house, or home” but it is a polite form (many words in Japanese starting “o” are honorific forms) that could also refer to a family or home of people. I have heard two theories about its derivation, one is that these people spend a lot of time at home but I prefer the idea that they are held to be so socially awkward that they refer to each other very formally.↩
2. I really liked this shot actually, as there was a lot of movement around her, Hikari seemed to be levitating by the side of the road. I am not sure if that image was intentional - it probably was - but that thought it may not have been is part of the charm.↩
3. I was not sure that there were no extras used as I watched it, it definitely had the feel that it had just been shot on the streets without clearing it.↩
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