‘Rei’: Rotterdam Review

Dir/scr: Toshihiko Tanaka. Japan. 2024. 189mins

This ambitious feature debut from writer/director/producer/editor/lead actor Toshihiko Tanaka takes a thirtysomething Tokyo woman, Hikari (Takara Suzuki), as the protagonist, link and catalyst in a series of distinct but overlapping dramas. Hikari’s growing emotional connection with deaf landscape photographer Masato (Toshihiko Tanaka) is the central strand in this intricate, engrossing piece of storytelling that touches upon universal themes of human connection, and Japanese attitudes towards disability. It is this latter element – there are a few moments that feel rather retrogressive in their approach to disabled characters – along with the film’s over-generous running time, that might prove to be a challenge for international distributor.

An intricate, engrossing piece of storytelling

Still, there is no question that Tanaka is a notable talent to watch going forward, as is the magnetic Takara Suzuki and cinematographer Akio Ikeda (who also co-produced and takes a supporting role in the film as Masato’s protective friend, Shinya). Having won the top prize in Rotterdam’s Tiger Competition, Rei should receive further interest on the festival circuit.

Hikari’s friendship with Masato runs alongside several other storylines. Tensions in the marriage of Hikari’s close friend Asami (Maeko Oyama) are building following the revelation that their three-year-old daughter is developmentally disabled. Asami’s husband is conducting an affair with a nurse who, coincidentally, cared for Masato’s dying mother. Meanwhile, Hikari is juggling an on-off flirtation with an older theatre actor, Mitsuru (Keita Katsumata).

The significance of the film’s title is explained in a pre-film mini-lecture. Rei is a kanji character (an ideogram in written Japanese) that holds little significance on its own but, when connected to other characters, “gains meaning for the first time”. It’s an allegory that can be read in several ways – the most generous is that it is only through our openness to the world and people around us that we become whole as individuals. The less charitable one is that Hikari – a chic office worker with a keen interest in avant-garde independent theatre productions and no major problems in her life – is destined to be unfulfilled as long as she remains alone.

It is true that there is a certain drama missing from her life, which is perhaps why she is drawn to the theatre. It’s through a play, titled ’Nestling Trees’, that Hikari first meets actor Mitsuru, who invites her to the post-show drinks with the rest of the cast to regale her with his theories on performance. And it’s through the artwork used on the production flyer that she first encounters the work of Masato, whose photograph of two ice-crusted trees in a snowy landscape catches her imagination. On a whim, she contacts him, asking whether he would take her portrait. And Masato, who lives far away from the rest of the world in the mountains of Hokkaido – but who is, by chance, in Tokyo for his mother’s funeral – consents to meet her.

They communicate through gestures and written notes – Masato never learned sign language but can express himself eloquently through SMS and email. But most of all, they learn from each other’s way of looking at the world. Although Masato’s reactions to situations can be socially unorthodox, he sees things that others don’t. When Asami, impressed by the portraits of Hikari, commissions him to take pictures of her family, Masato’s photographer’s eye picks up on the unbalance in the family unit, the way that Asami’s husband is already pulling away from his wife and child.

But despite the insight that Masato shows, there is a sense that, as a character, he is both defined and limited by his deafness. His best friend describes him as “fragile” and warns Hikari away from him. In the final act, Masato breaks down dramatically and expresses the wish to never have been born. It’s a troubling character arc: while not intentionally ableist, it does subscribe to the unfortunate assumption that a physical disability inevitably equates with personal and social inability.