Like Someone In Love

A prostitute reluctantly goes to a client rather than visiting her grandmother who is sitting in a train station waiting. The client turns out to be a respectable translator of some renown who has made her dinner, but she opts for just undressing and climbing into bed. He lets her sleep. The next day, he drives her to the university, meets her jealous boyfriend who thinks he's her grandfather, and then a couple of other things happen, and then it's been about two hours, and the movie ends.

That's called Like Someone In Love, and it's a Japanese film by the auteur Abbas Kiarostami, who's apparently done better work.

This was one of those films where me and The Boy came out saying "Huh." It's the most static film I've seen since the wonderful Schulze Gets The Blues where the static camera was beautifully used to comic effect.

In this movie, it creates a kind of cinema verité without all the annoying shaky-cam stuff. People do things below the frame, or have conversations off-screen while we're watching the main characters react. And they're given lots of time to react.

They're good actors, and there's some interest to be had sussing out the story. Tadashi Okuno is likable enough to not seem creepy for hiring a hooker his granddaughter's age. Rin Takanashi is beautiful in a sad, vulnerable way, which is good because, well, she's a hooker and her boyfriend doesn't know it but sorta suspects it.

So, good acting. Good characters. Nothing much happens. Ending is weird, not because it wasn't completely predictable (in the sense of being the logical progression of events) but because it's unclear what exactly happened. One of the characters was injured, probably, maybe killed? Dunno. What does any of it meaaaaan?

Nothing, I imagine. It's just a little slice-of-life.

Didn't hate it. Might go see another pic by this guy. Not everyone's cuppa. Can't quite figure out some of the extreme praise. There ya have it.