Youth is strange. It's a vastness of uncertainty, an insatiable curiosity for life, adulthood, love, pocketed between the everyday. In Haruna Tanaka's one-take short, three schoolgirls banter about happiness, capturing a beautiful instance in dreaming and growing up.
“Shall We Love You?” is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival
“Shall We Love You?” exudes the simple, carefree nostalgia of teenagehood, where three girls (Nishiki Morikawa, Saya Imajyo and Nami Nishida) fret over translating Oscar Wilde's “The Happy Prince” for a school play. The text tells of the tragic bond between a prince statue and a swallow bird, in their bid to alleviate the sorrow of their people. With their necessary talk of semantics, their quips naturally veer into philosophizing. Beginning with a dilemma between naming the play “The Happy Prince” or “The Prince of Happiness”, the girls quickly skew into asking: What is happiness? Does it come with love, or selfishness? Explored through a contemporary lens, and interspersed with playful readings of Oscar Wilde's text, “Shall We Love You?” gifts us with the best of the slice-of-life genre: Warm, transcendental moments discovered from the mundane.
Perhaps the gem of “Shall We Love You?” is its surface simplicity. Of course, the successful creation of this vignette is the accumulation of all the right details that are the hallmark of an observant, sensitive team. Yet, it is the memories of countless such conversations one may have had as an inexperienced youth, wondering on hazy afternoons about the lives we might lead, the feelings we might feel, that makes this quaint representation the lovely watch it is.
Taken with a single, static wide shot, the 7-minute piece has little to depend on other than charming dialogue and performance. Luckily for writer-director Haruna Tanaka, both find themselves in just the right sweet spot. Using simple, unfiltered language, the protagonists put forth their queries earnestly and directly. And best of all, without pretension. “If you love and are loved for just a moment, are you happy, even though everything else is hard?” It's a genuine question that rightfully betrays the ponderings of young people entering the world.
Far from a lofty treatise, Tanaka's screenplay expertly guides the conversation with good-natured tomfoolery and small talk, as usually heard between teenage girls. Humoring us through and through, they also connect witticisms with the characters' own realities. “What makes you happy?” “Waking up then going back to sleep”, she answers mischievously. Along with this charming set-up, Nishiki Morikawa, Saya Imajyo and Nami Nishida's endearing performances convincingly bring the film across. Sunny, yet relaxed, the trio easily draws our attention with their airy contemplations. Unexpectedly, in the brief time that we become acquainted with them, we are immediately in league with their feelings, questions and lack of answers.
Despite the unchanging angle, the lone frame we are provided with is filled with lively detail. Bits of gym school equipment glimpsed from a mirror, theater costumes haphazardly hung up in a corner. Inconspicuous details, not at all overt, are given time to attract our attention across the 7 minutes in which we immerse into this world. Like looking over a painting, Koichi Nakajima's intriguing composition and lighting build the thick layers for our story to begin.
Diegetic sound, however, is what brings this painting to life. The vibrant soundscape of students playing basketball offscreen, walking and running about, chattering just out of earshot, weaves a rich memory of schooling. When an offscreen basketball suddenly crashes into frame, we are jolted out of the girls' philosophical daydream.
Centering the ever ordinary, “Shall We Love You?” surprisingly does not bore. Haruna Tanaka's spin on teenage talk hopes to remain timeless, so long as we continue to wonder about the secrets of life itself.
