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DAY 21- 22/11/2023
Today's film is one I have seen more than 10 times now and coincidentally was released in the same year by the same director. Ryusuke Hamaguchi's year was 2021. There's no doubt about that. Drive My Car (2021) and The Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021) both released to critical acclaim although the latter isn't as well known as the former.
Kotone Furukawa (left) and Ayumu Nakajima (right) in The Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021).
This film has three short stories in one big film which is something that I must admit to not really seeing much of. Rarely do I watch films that have these anthology-type stories all thrown into one film. But it's not something I'd say turned me off from the film. If anything, it did the opposite. I got so invested in the first story, I kind of wished there was more to it than there was.
The second story was also one I really enjoyed. The beat of the dialogue was like music. Throughout the film, the dialogue is like this rhythmic heartbeat that kept me engaged throughout the whole film.
The third story while well written, I felt may have been thematically misplaced. There is a "youth" element to the first two parts that was missing in the third and personally, I felt that it took away from the film as a whole due to the thematic and rhythmic change that was so sudden.
But all in all this film was such a brilliantly made film. There's almost no faults in the actor's performances and the cinematography.
My Rating: 8/10.
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