Movie of the Week #22 : Christina Litsa picks Moonlight Whispers (1999) by Akihiko Shiota

Akihiko Shiota decides to introduce us his onscreen lovebirds Takuya and Satsuki during a casual, Japanese, high-school, Kendo practice. And this very moment of the two normal seventeen year olds dancing with their sticks opposed to one another with harmful intentions is Shiota's trick to engage the viewer on witnessing one of the most heartbreaking stories of troubled romance ever filmed, and i say troubled since Takuya is clearly aware that his love and adoration for Satsuki can be only expressed by her hurting him, an idea the girl finds thoroughly appalling at the start of the film, but later, because of her disappointment about a sweet romance gone sour, she invests all her energy to humiliate Takuya the way he wishes. And she is intricated about that. And she loves that. And then she's repulsed. By herself.

The scenery of Shiota's movie is an S&M relationship, but with no purpose to cause any erotic or sexual impression coming from the doomed ever-changing acts of service and dominance of his heroes. With the kendo scene being the only original and strangely romantic depiction of Takuya – young Kenji Mizuhashi is always the case when you need a guy tragically in love in your movie- and Satsuki's love from then on there's only a downfall of feeling and antics usually communicated to the audience by Satsuki's misery. Because how can you be content, if you are not the one you knew you were anymore with little hope of becoming a better version of this in the future.

A perfect movie for me, i wouldn't change a thing