Winner of Awards for Best Director and the Audience one in Tokyo this year, “(Ab)normal Desire” is a film that stays true to its title, as Yoshiyuki Kishi tries to present fetishes and the people who carry them as a normal part of society, even if society does not.
(Ab)normal Desire is screening at Toronto Japanese Film Festival
Based on the novel Seiyoku by Ryo Asai, the script follows the lives of a number of characters. Hiroki Terai is a prosecutor at the Yokohama Prosecutor's Office. He is married to Yumi and has a son who goes to elementary school, but has troubles adapting to school life. When he watches a video of a YouTuber influencer girl his age, who states how great she feels now that she is not attending school, he asks his father to do the same, but he turns him down without a second world, in his effort to keep his son normal. Yumi is much more supportive and eventually helps her son and a friend his age start their own YouTube channel. Shu, a young man who knows mother and son, ends up helping them with the technical aspect of the video, but Hiroki feels threatened by his presence, gradually becoming more agitated, something that puts even more tension in his family.
Natsuki Kiryu has always had a fetish for water, something, however, she has kept secret all her life, essentially alienating herself from everyone. Hearing her colleagues and family asking and pushing her towards getting married and having children, she is frequently aggravated, with nowhere to channel her feelings. The only one who has ever understood her is a former classmate of hers, Sasaki, who has moved to another school at some point, though, with the two of them not meeting again. Now, however, he has returned to the city and the two meet again in a class reunion.
If you like (Ab)normal Desire, check also this video
Yaeko Kanbe is a college student who seems to suffer from intense agoraphobia, barely being able to interact with people and shivering to the briefest touch. Along with a colleague of hers, they are preparing the Diversity Festival, and try to find unique artists to feature in. It is there that she meets Daiya, a dancer, who immediately fascinates her. He, however, has his own psychological issues to face, and her efforts to approach him are quite awkward.
In a style Japanese cinema has always thrived, as films like “Rage” and “Noise” eloquently highlight, Yoshiyuki Kishi implements a number of arcs that eventually come together, in order to make his comment as wide and diverse as possible. His effort to show that being different is ok, and that the web can actually help significantly in that regard is quite evident, and his message as eloquent as it is impactful.
In that fashion, most of the protagonists seem to represent a group that strays away from what society considers normal. The kid that does not want to go to school but prefers to be a YouTuber, the youths who just want to indulge into their fetishes and not follow the ‘normal' path of good job, family and kids, and the agoraphobic who is trying to connect are parts of the same comment, as mentioned above. At the same time, what Kishi seems to state is that essentially what all of them are searching for is love and understanding, most of them from a partner and the kid from his father. In the same line, Hiroki seems to represent the average Japanese (and the authorities), with his conservatism and his lack of knowledge and understanding, which are the aspects that lead him away from his family.
“(Ab)normal Desire” gradually moves towards an everyone-lived-happily-ever-after path, but Kishi is not that naive nor that unrealistic. As such, the ending highlights that even if the web can provide a solution, it is by no means without its dangers, and that the anonymity it offers can lead down to very dangerous paths. In the same tactic, Kishi is not presented as a villain, just as a man whose path in life has led him to have the particular way of doing things.
The combination of script and direction are obviously the best traits of the movie, but the acting follows quite closely. Goro Inagaki as the personification of Japanese conservatism is quite convincing, with his lack of understanding echoing quite loudly throughout the movie. Yui Aragaki as Natsuki highlights her anger and the way she tries to keep it bottled down in impressive fashion, while Hayato Isomura as Sasaki plays somewhat of an opposite character, with their chemistry being impressive throughout. The scene with the ‘sex' is definitely their apogee, while the interrogation scenes, of all three. Ayaka Higashino as Yaeko is also quite good in showing her constant struggle and the way she tries to fight it.
DP Kozo Natsumi captures the events with realism, without particular exaltations, with the exception of the scenes including water, which are definitely impressive. Kishi's own editing showcases how great his command of the medium is, with him interchanging the various arcs in ideal fashion, while bringing them smoothly all together.
““(Ab)normal Desire” is an excellent film, a unique case for Japanese cinema, particularly because it manages to shed much light to a series of concepts that are considered taboo, without fetishizing them in any way, neither resorting to crime tropes in order to make them more interesting.
