A rockabilly detective starts to realise that the most mysterious part of his case is his client in Atsuro Shimoyashiro’s quirky tale of buried histories and enduring images, Lonesome Vacation. Echoing amore distant past, the film reflects that some things you’re better off not knowing while those around us are often flawed beyond our imaging or else carrying painful secrets of their own they may not wish to share though more for the sake of others than themselves.
You might say that Eichi (Takuma Fujie) stands out with this 1950s quiff and retro get up, but it also allows him to hide in plain sight while carrying out his various jobs chasing cheaters and other kinds of surveillance work. But when he runs into old flame Kyoko (Kyoka Minakami) whom he briefly dated in college, she asks him to investigate a reel of film she deceived in among her late father’s belongings. The film seems to show her father with another woman, Reiko, whom Kyoko is keen to track down.
Setting off on a roatrip that is as Eiji later says is almost like a vacation, the pair eventually start to grow closer and perhaps fall in love while trying to solve the mystery of the film. Kyoko’s father Miko, suggests in his voice over that film is a more ephemeral medium than video while simultaneously confessing that he wanted to capture a woman on film, to keep her in the present moment, in the knowledge that film will last longer than us. Miko describes it as a metaphor for life, his own and perhaps generally though it’s lost to us now. Kyoko searches for the answer to a puzzle her father died before telling her how to solve.
Piecing everything together, Eichi starts to realise that Mikio most likely had an affair and Kyoko may have a sibling though neither of them are very sure whether they should reveal themselves not wanting to create further trouble in their lives by announcing that their mother had an affair. Nevertheless, even after it seems like the original case has been resolved, Eichi realises he’s unable to solve the mystery of Kyoko. Having very briefly dated in uni, he doesn’t quite understand why she’s come to him now or really anything about her character or habits. She meanwhile seems to have taken a liking to him through their strange road trip during which everyone seems to regard them as a young couple very much in love.
Ironically enough, Eichi avows that it’s the image that matters but only after comes to understand the import of something he’s seen, little reasoning that sometimes relationships can be different than the image we have of them. Yet as he says, it’s image that’s really important, our thoughts and impressions of something as disctivt from their physical presence along with the absences within them that provoke our imaginations. Kyoko gets some answers if perhaps not the ones she’s was looking for but is also left with unavoidable gaps because those who could have filled them in are no longer able to do so.
Shimoyashiro gets good milage out of the retro quality of Eichi’s outfit and hairstyle along the absurdity of a rockabilly detective but also gives him an almost Kindaichi-esque sense of goodness, too diffident to pursue Kyoko even after beginning to realise that she seems to be flirting with him. Slightly more dejected than he is, Kyoko insists that one day simply follows another but that also kindness is what gives life its meaning. In a way, it’s what gives the image value too in a kind of selflessness that placed no ownership over its subject and was content to let it roam where it chose. Taking place largely in the surprisingly romantic environs of Jogashima, the film has a charmingly old-fashioned quality even in its central slow burn romance along wth a genuine sense of worth and authenticity even if its main subject turns out to be the melancholy echoes of a lost love or at least the image of it enduring long after the lovers themselves have departed,
LONESOME VACATION screened as part of this year’s Nippon Connection
Original trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 