Sangatsu no raion – March comes in like a lion

‘This could be the archetypal love story for the ’90s: a picture about the tricks and traps of desire and the courage and will needed to overcome them’. These flattering words for the film, which tells a penetrating modern story in a calm yet powerful way, are by Tony Rayns (Journal Berlin Festival).The title of the film, March Comes in Like a Lion, is derived from an English maxim. March comes after the ice has melted and before the flowers blossom. It is a month of storms. It shakes its tail. The story starts in winter to work literally and metaphorically towards spring. The film describes the feelings of a woman who surrenders to love even though she knows it will end in a storm. The love is between a brother and sister, a present-day incest story rooted in an old Japanese literary tradition. It is the sister who takes the initiative.In the film the woman fetches her brother, who is suffering from amnesia, from hospital and tells him that his name is Haruo and hers is Ice and that they are lovers. They live together in a slum neighbourhood of Tokyo. Haruo gets work with a demolition crew and Ice supplements the household budget by working as a prostitute now and then. Slowly Haruostarts getting his memory back and then the storm seems inevitable.In his film Yazaki Hitoshi leaves a lot to the imagination. Chris Berry (Cinemaya) wrote: ‘Although the film supplies snippets of individual fantasy and delusion, it never delivers. Instead, these snippets are used to hook our attention, and what is delivered is a series of extraordinarily beautiful images’.