WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY

That Other Brilliant 2021 Hamaguchi Film

Venue(s): Bunkamura Le Cinema
December 17 (Fri) - 23 (Thur), 2021 at 18:20
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Official website: guzen-sozo.incline.life/
Theater website: www.bunkamura.co.jp/english/cinema/20210614.html
Theater website: www.bunkamura.co.jp/access/
Theater website: www.bunkamura.co.jp/english/cinema/
Trailer: https://guzen-sozo.incline.life/
Tariff: General: ¥1,800, University Students: ¥1,500 (weekdays: ￥1,200), Senior: ¥1,200 High school students or below: ¥1,000, Senior: ¥1,100, Member: ¥1,000
Advance tickets: https://www.bunkamura.co.jp/english/ticketguide/t_cinema.html
Talk event: NA

Title: 偶然と想像 (Guzen to Sozo)
Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi (濱口竜介)
Duration: 121 min

Hear that jingle? It’s Santa (aka distributor Incline) with an early holiday gift: From Friday, Dec. 17, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s brilliant anthology film Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy will run with English subtitles every night for a week. A hallelujah chorus is in order while you book your seats.

As you’ve no doubt heard, this is Hamaguchi’s year. After receiving overseas acclaim for the Wife of a Spy script in late 2020, which he cowrote with his former teacher, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy played at the Berlin International Film Festival in early 2021 and received the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize. Less than 2 months later, Hamaguchi was in Cannes with another new film, Drive My Car, which snagged the Best Screenplay award and is now moving swiftly into frontrunner position on the Oscar shortlist for Best International Feature.

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy comprises 3 short films about chance and yearning (the Japanese title means "coincidence and imagination"), each with female protagonists, but none directly related. A master of minimalism and minute detail, Hamaguchi’s finely crafted stories are always very talky, and the conversations always brutally honest.

Magic

In this work, he starts with two women in a taxi discussing a new love interest. Episode one is titled Magic (or something less assuring), and model Meiko (Kotone Furukawa) listens with a sinking heart as her friend Tsugumi (Hyunri) describes the best date of her life. When she decides she must do something about it, nothing about the ensuing confrontation is predictable.

In episode two, Door Wide Open, a woman (Katsuki Mori) helps her college-student lover take revenge on his pompous professor (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) for failing him. The professor may have just won a prestigious literary price, but he is almost hilariously scrupulous about avoiding any hint of teacher-student interaction — which reduces the woman’s chances of seducing and humiliating him as planned.

Door Wide Open

In the final episode, Once Again, Natsuko (Fusako Urabe) is leaving her 20th high school reunion when she bumps into an old classmate, Aya (Aoba Kawai), who invites her home for tea. While it doesn’t seem to matter, this chapter takes place after a computer virus has wiped out the internet, thus underscoring the importance of the women’s shared memories, sans Facebook, about school and mutual friends… until they begin to realize something’s amiss.

Working with his Happy Hour producer, Satoshi Takada, Hamaguchi makes each story a masterclass in how to sustain interest even in mundane settings, how to provoke laughter and empathy when most needed, and how to produce a jolt of surprise each time you least anticipate it. It’s a must see, even if — or especially if — you’ve already watched Drive My Car.

Once Again

Bunkamura Le Cinema