When was the last time someone performed an act of kindness for you? It doesn’t have to be any major, life-saving event, nor something you even noticed immediately; it just has to be something that picked you up just a little bit from your previous state of being. Kiyoshi Sugita‘s fourth feature, “Following the Sound” is full of these moments, both big and small, and is a film open for you to bring your own empathy into its silent echo chamber, and maybe to have it projected right back at you.
Following the Sound is screening at Japan Cuts 2024
The arbiter of kindness in “Following the Sound” is An Ogawa‘s Haru, a young woman we are introduced to in a moment of pensive reflection. She stands outside listening to a deeply personal cassette tape, almost ready to burst with emotion as her mind drifts between past and present. We then discover she is part of an art therapy group, where she is the youngest member by at least thirty years. Their teacher gives the cohort through recreating moments of beauty in their lives, through camcorder and through pencil drawing. Haru is demonstrably alone, a sore thumb in the group and in her day-to-day comings and goings. Her path crosses with two significant figures: Yukiko (Yuko Nakamura), a similarly lonely middle-aged woman in an existential slump, and Tsuyoshi (Hidekazu Mashima), an also middle-aged man whose life is quite literally owed to Haru. Through these chance encounters, Haru’s own vulnerability is drawn towards the light, and thus begins an observational presentation of inner strength versus unspeakable grief.
Check also this interview
I use the word ‘unspeakable’ partly because of the difficult nature of the characters’ traumas, but also because Sugita rarely vocalizes exactly what is going on in their lives. The viewer’s engagement with “Following the Sound” depends on precisely that: if they’re able to follow its ever-so-subtle rhythms to their logical end points. There are clues: Tsuyoshi’s emotionally-bereft breakdown is telling of an unknown shame in his past; Yukiko’s uncertain familiarity with Haru suggests a loss in her own life; Haru’s artistic journey armed with a low-quality digital camera captures an intimate memory at a respectful distance. Sugita puts a lot of responsibility on his audience to fill in the blanks and draw their own conclusions, which is a bold choice when the film lives or dies by how the viewer can grapple with its buttoned-down emotions. It’s a film often so quiet it makes a Hong Sang-soo drama play like a John Woo shoot-’em-up. However, if anyone watching the film sees themselves in the micro-expressions and behaviors of any of the characters, they already hold the key to unlocking its true power.
An Ogawa’s performance as Haru provides the other anchor for the drama. She has an extraordinary ability of teetering just on the edge of tears, not quite welling up, but visibly battling with herself to keep her composure. Her relationship with Yuko Nakamura’s Yukiko has as much unease as it does benevolence and patience, providing a unique tension in a friendship that feels almost cosmic in its coincidental origins. The two supply the film with its finest moments, whether that be the beautiful process of cooking a meal for one another or a tender embrace when the other needs it most.
Cinematographer Yukiko Iioka has collaborated with Sugita throughout his career so far, yet more people might recognize her work from Ryusuke Hamaguchi‘s “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy”. She brings a similar simple beauty to the cafés, classes and kitchens Sugita’s latest takes place in, shooting the sun-dappled streets in languid long takes that envelop you in their warm glow. Once again, how one chooses to spend time in these ordinary moments of beauty is up to each individual viewer, and any restlessness inside them is determined by how much of themselves one would like to see in the film’s almost imperceptibly gentle energies.
Sugita is a filmmaker that does not hold your hand. He instead beckons you from afar to follow him on a journey without a destination, a walking tour of the soul that encourages you to stop and start at intervals to absorb the mysteries of others and of yourself. Look and listen closely, and his carefully-chosen words, images and, indeed, sounds might just be enough to restore your faith in humanity.
