Blue Fish

Ryoko Chibana works in a small hairdressers. She is eighteen years old and her life is fairly uneventful. But one day when she is hanging out the washing she drops a towel which falls in front of the feet of a man who has just moved in opposite the hairdressers. Ryoko becomes fascinated by the man and tries to become friends with him. He on the other hand is very occupied in drug dealing with Chinese and Taiwanese maffiagroups.
Blue Fish is short, just about an hour long and the visible action is not the most dominating. It is filmed in a typical eastern Asian style with long, contemplative shots and consists of many long passages with only images of plants, facades and insects. The dialogue is very meagre, but the music plays a big part, almost every scene contains piano music. The film resembles European artfilm tradition quite a bit, but in a Japanese surroundings.
Blue Fish is unusual because it is missing a conventional story. Here are fragments of beginning, middle and end, but everything is abstract. The story is constantly interspersed with long, meditative sequences without words and action. Yosuke Nakagawa has concentrated on mood and state of mind, more so than in a conventional narrative.
This makes the film slightly difficult to take in. But if you give it a chance you will see a beautiful piece of fi Imart of an unusual kind.
FREDRIK GUSTAFSSON

Premiärstatus
Skandinavisk premiär: Medverkande
Mari Ouchi,Keigo Heshiki,Yoshino Tamaki: Producent
Koji Murakoso: Manus
Yosuke Nakagawa: Foto
Ichigo Sugawara: Musik
Kenichiro Shibuya: Talat språk
Japanese