After the short films “Slough” (2020) about the loss of a child, and the historical drama “Lifelike” (2018), filmmaker Haruna Tanaka was given a whole Focus segment dedicated to her at the Indie Forum of the Osaka Asian Film Festival 2023, including her films “Shall We Love You?” (2022), and her latest work “Kanro”. The two films have few things in common, like a good part of the crew and the director's choice to shoot them in one take and with a fixed camera, concentrating on the skilled performances of the actors. While the first one is a conversation between three student girls, “Kanro” focuses on two male characters.
Kanro is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival
Two siblings, Daigo (Keigo Oka) and his younger brother Soma (Ippei Tanaka) are chatting away and reminiscing of their youth. They are sitting on an empty sweet shop – now old and rickety – that used to belong to their grandfather, after his funeral. We see that the shop hasn't been used or inhabited for a while, and we can see some of the dusty old features and signs. The sad occurrence that reunited the young men turns into a rediscovery of sweet memories and common ground. One of the two moved to Tokyo years earlier, therefore being together is a rare occasion and conversation flows freely. They share a cigarette, even though they both are trying to quit and go through many topics; family memories, the covid-19 time, a hint to the common scam that targets elderly people, and one particular thing that brings back the time when the two were at elementary school. It's one of the sweets they used to find in their grandfather's shop, a fruit jelly called “kanro”, with a funny, indefinite bland taste, and whose name has the dreamy meaning of “honeydew” – the sweet dew which falls from heaven – and that holds a special meaning for Soma.
The photography is simple and realistic as the camera is fixed and the film's length is only 12 minutes, but the clever setting in front of a windowpane not only makes the lighting rather enchanting but also creates an “outside” space that we hear but we don't really see, and it prepares beautifully for the final twist. The performances are both very good as the two characters manage to gain depth from each other's lines and create a very believable interaction, and this also leads to a more surprising finale.
“Kanro” had its world premiere at the Osaka Asian Film Festival 2023, and with its brief duration provides a delightful ghostly happy story about empathy, the magic of memories and the interconnection between past and present in our lives.
