It is like coming to Japan, but not as a tourist, but to visit a close friend and stay with her for a couple of years, several times with her to change the house, friends and... loved one. One went to get new shoes and didn’t come back, the other appeared two years later and looked like a twin brother but saw the girl for the first time. And while we're wrestling with who these two people are and where the first one went, we're going through a lot with sweet Asako in all the nuances. Growing up? Including him.
Asako’s film 1 and 2 (Netemo Sametemo, 2018) is a touching blend of lyrical drama and thriller, elegant and wonderful in Japanese. It's a skillful immersion in reality, just drinking coffee with Asako and her friends, going to the theater with them, quoting Chekhov, eating fresh oysters and feeding the cat. The cat is charming, by the way! Both as a character and as an end-to-end detail - dramatically perfect. Each scene – like quatrains – is emotional and contemplative, creates a special rhythm and is filled with life. And in the meantime, the spring shrinks. But fans of classic thrillers will be a little surprised.
The questions that really interest the filmmakers lie in the plane of drama and the emphasis on them. They're looking at relationships. They allow the viewer to observe the creative and destructive power of the same impression. But the impression is only a catalyst and there is something more fundamental that you can really rely on, it is useful to watch this film to look at your own relationship wider and deeper, at least from both sides, to understand the nature of some actions. Understand and forgive or not.