L + R

A light-hearted but also serious film essay about misunderstandings between Japanese and westerners and vice versa. A film that consciously wants to avoid being a documentary, but also remains a good way away from the docu-drama. A personal narrative about postwar Japan, that despite its mild satire is also a declaration of love for this special country, with its special culture and its special people. A charming young Japanese woman (Kudo Yukika, who also acted in Honetschläger’s Milk, that was screened last year in Rotterdam) helps the story from A to Z, but resists what she regards as the all-too-western eye of the film-maker. New and old material (with wonderful unknown feature footage) are interwoven into a love story between East and West, between a man and a woman, between L + R (that are interchangeable in Japanese pronunciation). With visible pleasure, many curious details and amazing situations are included in the film without veering away from the specific tone of the film. Through fairy-tales, anecdotes, true stories and witnesses, the film continues to circle round the occasionally very different approaches of East and West. Rotterdam will do justice to the film now that so many special Japanese films are being screened here this year. The woman: ‘Why ask such strange questions? Why I do this? I don’t know. Europeans always need explanations.’