Teen actress and comedic moody star of Hirobumi Watanabe‘s 2023 film “Techno Brothers”, Asuna Yanagi, has a proclaimed case of the film bug as she has poured all her soul and effort into “Rainy Blue“, her debut as a writer and director. It’s a feature film where the line between reality and fiction is thin and blurry – so much so that she also starred in the film as the protagonist, Aoi.
Rainy Blue is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival
Aoi is a high school student in Tamana City, Kumamoto Prefecture, in the critical year where you must decide what your academic path is going to be and especially where it’s going to take you. After an unfortunate stunt with fireworks that almost burned down the school, Aoi and her two schoolmates are punished for summer and forced to join an extracurricular club. Aoi, almost by chance, joins the Film Society (not “Club,” as she often remarks), where she is the only member, probably hoping to slack off unnoticed. Besides, the punishment consists of going to the local arthouse cinema and watching “Tokyo Story”, Ozu’s masterpiece, starring his regular collaborator and Aoi’s alma mater’s alumnus, Chishu Ryu. This reluctant viewing turns into a proper epiphany, and Aoi falls in love with cinema. She starts to spend most of her time at the little cinema and strikes a close friendship with the guy who runs it (Kengo Kora, the unforgettable Yonosuke).
Back at the eerie, messy, and dusty room that houses the Film Society, Aoi, in a lazy attempt to tidy up, stumbles upon an old manuscript that looks like a film script, and the idea of writing her own film script starts to take shape. In search of inspiration, she observes her classmates and their oddball behaviors; she gets to the point of following them unseen to spy on their lives, fueling the rumors that a mysterious stalker is in town. One of her school friends is Runa Nakashima, a pretty and diligent girl, who soon becomes her nemesis as Aoi’s frustrated father (Chishu Ryu’s grandson, Kenzo Ryu) always mentions her as the perfect student. Another friend is a bizarre anime fanatic in denial, played to hilarious effect by filmmaker Hirobumi Watanabe. Aoi feels pressured by the impending university admission exams, her self-esteem is low, she’s just lost her mom (Mayu Ozawa), and her dad is growing increasingly frustrated by her lack of interest in anything but films.
“Rainy Blue” is undoubtedly a very personal project for director/writer Asuna Yanagi, who wrote it (like her character) when she was still at school. The end of high school marks the conclusion of a sheltered and carefree period in life; it leads to the daunting task of taking control of your future and making decisions about university or alternative career paths. All of this painful but necessary crisis makes for the perfect scenario for coming-of-age narratives and soul-searching tales; we have seen many. Yanagi’s film is not new in this, but it retains a freshness and a roughness that shows a beating heart at its core and a real-life inspiration. It is messy, and in some parts, the script doesn’t benefit from being so close to the writer’s life, and at 2 hours and 3 minutes, it is definitely too long. At the same time, it is a candid and honest account of the foggy mess that at that age we all experience.
One particularly impressive aspect of “Rainy Blue” is the local flavor of the film—a loving tribute that Yanagi pays to Kumamoto Prefecture, its joyful people, its calm beauty, and its creative talents like Kengo Kora, Mayu Ozawa, Kenzo Ryu, and Runa Nakashima, all of them, of course, in the shadow of Aoi’s hero, Chishu Ryu. The camera often lingers on the stunning landscapes of Kyushu—the open seashore, the waterfalls in the forest, and the lush fields—to underscore Aoi’s more pensive and languid moments. Yanagi’s directing style stands out in these striking visual sequences. On the other hand, many funny gags in the shape of episodic vignettes—some of them as imaginary parts of Aoi’s film script—provide a welcome comic relief. The best one is courtesy of Watanabe, who, aside from playing Aoi’s bizarre classmate, plays the double role of a rude but straightforward filmmaker who gives a lecture about the power of films and an honest meta-review of Aoi’s script that could happily apply to Yanagi’s film.
With all the imperfections that “Rainy Blue”’s naivete brings up, the ensemble is a rather successful portrait of the author’s struggle and the daunting prospect of facing a career in the film business. Her passionate and energetic debut is an excellent start, and it will be interesting to see more from this emerging talent.
