A struggling editor at a magazine gains a new perspective while falling in love with an autistic artist in Rika Katsu’s romantic drama Spring In Between (はざまに生きる、春, Hazama ni ikiru, haru). Spring is coming in the lives of artist and reporter alike, yet as Haru’s (Sakurako Konishi) professional life begins to come into focus she finds herself romantically confused and ever more obsessed with the mysterious painter while largely unable to ascertain what the extent of his feelings for her may be assuming that he has any at all.
Haru’s obsession begins when she becomes immersed in one of Tohru’s (Hio Miyazawa) paintings which like much of his work depicts a vast blue sea. Three years on the job, she’s still making rookie mistakes and is constantly berated by her boss who offers little in the way guidance. Nevertheless, she catches a break when he brings her on to assist with an interview of a top artist who is known to be “eccentric”. Never having much exposure to neurodiversity, Haru finds herself captivated but also somehow on the same wavelength while drawn to what she sees as Tohru’s profundity and poeticism.
The film does at times fall into the trap of fetishising Tohru’s “unique” way of seeing of the world while otherwise keen to lay bare the extent to which neurodiversity continues to be stigmatised. Haru’s partner on the magazine article repeatedly describes Tohru as “odd” in a slightly mocking way, while the journalists assigned to interview him have little patience and do not even bother to hide their exasperation when he flies off on tangents about plastic bottles or tree bark. The magazine is interested in him precisely because of his neurodiversity and learning disability hoping to sell an inspirational story of someone overcoming the odds to find success but in private continue to laugh at him.
Even Haru struggles to comprehend some of the unhelpful information she looks up while researching Asperger’s Syndrome which talks of an inability to empathise leaving her wondering if Tohru has the capacity for romance despite his directly telling her that he has fallen in love before because he is after all human though he never said anything because he did not want to get hurt. A more experienced colleague noticing Haru’s increasingly erratic behaviour tries to give her some advice, but it isn’t to the effect that it might be unethical and irresponsible to fall in love with your subject for a piece but only that she’ll wind up getting hurt because Tohru is autistic and therefore unable to return her feelings, implying that in any case she views a relationship between them as as inappropriate given what she sees as Tohru’s disability.
In revealing Haru’s own potentially autistic traits, such as her preference to have someone stand on her left and never her right, the film strays into a potentially uncomfortable implication that everyone is a little bit autistic while otherwise trying to eliminate the line has that been placed between Tohru and everyone else. Introducing a romantic rival in the form of an equally eccentric, larger than life photographer who also does not fit into “conventional” society, also implies that neurodiverse people can only date each other while Haru struggles to define her feelings both for Tohru and for uni boyfriend Nao who appears to be both possessive and disinterested telling her that she should get over her left side only thing in the same way some talk about a “cure” for Tohru’s neurodiversity.
Haru can’t state her feelings any more directly than Tohru can while simultaneously unable to find a way through to him to find out if he likes her at all or is just being friendly and considerate, unlike Nao making a map to figure out the acceptable dimensions of her personal space and promising to always stay at a comfortable angle. Yet in the end it’s curiosity that builds connection, the simple desire to know more about another person and to see the world from another perspective. Promises are kept, and a message delivered if in a roundabout way. As they say, spring will always get there in the end even if summer is right around the corner. A sweet and innocent romance, Spring in Between is as much about self-revelation as it is about mutual understanding and the still currents of a deep blue sea.
Spring in Between screened as part of this year’s Nippon Connection.
Original trailer (no subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 