‘Rainy Blue': Behind-the-scenes drama tarnishes an intriguing debut
'What's going to end?' her interlocutor asks.
'The streaming period,' she replies, 'and my life.'
There's a similar sense of urgency driving 'Rainy Blue' — which, in addition to starring in, Yanagi also wrote, edited and directed. In the production notes, she recalls her determination to make a movie while she was still a teenager. The end result is a rare thing: an adolescent coming-of-age tale whose creator, a high-school student at the time it was filmed, is part of the cohort being depicted.
This semi-autobiographical story of cinematic obsession was partially shot at Yanagi's own school in Kumamoto Prefecture. It's also the alma mater of Chishu Ryu, the famed actor best remembered for his work with Yasujiro Ozu.
Aoi first encounters the pair's films unwillingly, when she gets ordered to attend a screening at a local cinema as punishment for a transgression at school. Pretty soon she's hooked, becoming a regular moviegoer and the most avid (and only) member of her school's film club.
While rummaging through the club room, she finds a battered script titled 'Rainy Blue,' which inspires her to start writing a screenplay of her own. It's certainly more appealing than having to think about life after graduation — a topic that's repeatedly foisted on her by the aforementioned teacher (Ami Chong) and her father (Kenzo Ryu, Chishu's grandson).
Cinema offers an escape, as does Aoi's overactive imagination. She starts stalking her classmates in search of creative inspiration, gets a job cleaning the temple where Chishu Ryu was born and befriends an improbably mature student who dresses like he just stepped out of an Ozu film (played by indie filmmaker Hirobumi Watanabe).
As Aoi totes her laptop to an assortment of scenic locations, often dressed as a fortune teller (don't ask), it becomes increasingly clear that what we're watching shouldn't be taken at face value. However, it's hard to say how much of it is really taking place inside her head, or how it overlaps with the mysterious script she found at school. The film's (admittedly lovely) denouement leaves a lot of threads dangling.
'Rainy Blue' is an enjoyably scrappy debut, but its release has been overshadowed by a public spat between the film's production committee and some key staff, including Watanabe (who also played a significant behind-the-scenes role). The details of the dispute — which involves claims of copyright infringement and defamation on one side, and allegations of harassment against Watanabe on the other — are too complicated to go into here, though they leave a sour aftertaste.
A sequence in which Watanabe plays a cantankerous movie director lands differently, knowing that Yanagi has accused her collaborator of being a bully. The revelation that Watanabe had edited a much longer, 150-minute cut of 'Rainy Blue,' which he claims was crudely reassembled for the theatrical release, also left me wondering about what got chopped.
Maybe there's a version of the film that unites its cinephile fantasies, comic digressions and adolescent yearning into a more cohesive whole. The puckish energy and heartfelt emotions of 'Rainy Blue' only get it so far. I just hope that Yanagi's evident love of movies has survived her experience of making one.
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