N.Y. Asian-American

Crying Out Love In The Center Of The World

Sekai No Chushin De, Ai Wo Sakebu (Japan)

By RONNIE SCHEIB

Read other reviews about this film

Powered By

A Toho presentation of a Toho production. Produced by Minami Ichikawa. Executive producer, Hideyuki Honma.
Directed by Isao Yukisada. Screenplay by Yugi Sakamoto, Chihiro Ho, Yukisada, based on the novel by Katayama Kyoichi.
 
With: Takao Osawa, Masami Nagasawa, Mirai Moriyama, Kou Shibasaki, Tsutomo Yamazaki.
(Japanese dialogue)

 

Cast in epic rather than TV movie mode, helmer Isao Yukisada's "Crying Out Love in the Center of the World," a saga of death-crossed teens based on a bestselling novel, eschews disease-of-the-week pap in favor of subtly wrought operatic shifts of composition and emotion. Extraordinarily well-crafted romance sustains resonant tone and inventive visual sense for much of its 138-minute length, but pileup of melodramatic scenes in the last half-hour pushes pic into schmaltz. A mega-hit in Japan -- where it spawned a nationwide craze for "pure love" (as opposed to erotic) -- may be too sentimental for Western auds.

Segueing effortlessly between present and past, pic establishes a dual time-frame as office worker Sakuto (Takao Osawa) follows his runaway fiancee Ritsuko (Kou Shibasaki) to his hometown on Shikoku, hours ahead of Typhoon 29. Once there, Sakuto is overwhelmed with memories of his high school years and of the great love of his life, Aki (Masami Nagasawa).

As the older Sakuto listens to the tapes he and Aki exchanged as youths, pic shifts from the rain swept present to sunlit 1986 where the 16-year-old Sakuto (Mirai Moriyama), then called "Saku," hurries to his principal's funeral. There he encounters Aki, a remarkably poised, intelligent, athletic and popular girl, seemingly above the reach of gangly Saku. But the two are soon inseparable, tooling around on Saku's motorcycle and raiding the cemetery at night to steal a bone from the principal's ashes at the behest of Uncle Shige (the incomparable Tsutomo Yamazaki).

On a summer outing, an officious friend strands the duo on an island overnight. But their idyll, in an abandoned hotel transformed into an enchanted garden by the setting sun, is purely platonic. The excursion marks the end of innocence in another way, though, when Aki, standing on a promontory high above the beach, suddenly crumples backward.

For pic's next hour and 20 minutes, each swooning collapse proves more over-the-top than the last. One involves a little girl struck by a car (red umbrella flying upward). The girl then crawls like a miniature Jennifer Jones to retrieve one of Aki's cassettes.

Throughout, the unfolding story of Saku and Aki is stopped, restarted and mystically intertwined with the present-day rain-soaked odyssey of Sakuto and Ritsuko via the audio tapes that trigger and accompany each installment.

Helmer Yukisada weaves a rich tapestry of recurrent themes and visual motifs, from small rituals (the way the characters gingerly handle the tapes) to the torrential Typhoon 29.

Pic derives most of its power from Yukisada's aesthetic control of the frame, ably abetted by Noboru Shinoda's widescreen lensing. Kinetic relationship of long-shot to close-up and a highly developed foreground/background aesthetic add depth and complexity.

When young Saku accompanies Aki to the hospital, he turns to leave and the entire foreground slides into slow-motion, while Aki, at normal speed, disappears up some stairs and then returns seconds later, racing back down the stairs as if entering from another time-space continuum. This dramatic dicing and splicing of the two teens poignantly mirrors pic's overriding past/present layering.

Thesping is generally fine. Nagasawa creates a vibrant young woman who is indeed unforgettable, while Moriyama leavens Saku's wonder and grief with a clueless gawkiness that is quite endearing. Osawa and Shibasaki as the present-day couple are seldom called upon to do more than be photogenic as they suffer in the rain.

Tech credits are pro, though score's piano-dominated romanticism sometimes cloys.

Camera (color, widescreen), Noboru Shinoda; editor, Tsuyoshi Imai; music, Meina & Co.; production designer, Syu Yamaguchi; sound (Dolby Digital), Hironori Ito. Reviewed at New York Asian-American Film Festival, July 23, 2005. Running time: 138 MIN.