Like Someone in Love [dir. Abbas Kiarostami]

A young girl in a slick Tokyo club (Rin Takanashi) is arguing over the phone with her suspicious boyfriend. She is then met by the club owner (Denden), who after doling out some life advice asks her to go for an assignment . We realize she's a part-time prostitute, he's the pimp. She wants to pass on it, as she has exams and also a visiting grandmother that wants to meet her at the railway station before returning back. The owner is polite but firm: the client is someone he respects deeply, and she is the right type for him. While taking a long-distance cab to the client's place, she asks the driver to circle the railway station a couple of times where she observes a woman that may be her grandmother. She lets off some quiet sobs, then falls asleep in the cab while it ferries her to the client. Expecting a high-profile politician or tycoon, she is surprised to find that the client is a comfortable but definitely middle-class retired professor...who also happens to be her grandfather's age.

After having made several notable Iranian films, Abbas Kiarostami went full international to make films in French (Certified Copy) and Japanese (Like Someone in Love - LSIL). I haven't seen the former, but what strikes me best about LSIL is how much it appears like a film made by a modern Yasujiro Ozu - The respect for spaces and silences, the formal conversation, inner thoughts expressed in glances and in tangential remarks. Of course, Kiarostami's previous landmark films are also noted for their circumlocutory approach.

The introduction scene of the girl is important to what happens next. The professor (Tadashi Okuno) has obviously planned a romantic evening with sparkling wine and fine food (perhaps this refined academic wants to soften the idea of a hired tryst), but after some ice-breaking conversation, the emotionally exhausted girl just flops into bed and falls asleep. Sighing resignedly, the old man tucks her in, as a grandparent would. The next day we see him driving her back. We don't know if at any point in the night (or early morning) they do the deed she was called for. Like other Kiarostami films, LSIL features a lot of riding around in cars (not the Fast and Furious kind, mind).

When the girl gets off at the university, she is met by the boyfriend who assumes the old man to be her grandfather; the professor plays along. The young man expresses his views about women in general, and the girl in particular, exposing deep insecurities. But he also warms up to the old man's advice about trust in love, which renews hope for his relationship with the girl, even offers to fix a problem in the car at his garage. At a slightly later point the young man realizes the actual relation between his girlfriend and the professor.

LSIL is a chamber piece, and compared to some of Kiarostami's older work, lightweight. It quietly exposes certain emotional situations. and leaves the consequences for the viewer to imagine; in that modest aim, it does well. The film is anchored mainly around the 3 lead performances (the girl, the professor, the boyfriend) and the actors come across wonderfully. In the little that I saw of the making, Kiarostami talks about how Tadashi Okuno had been previously only an extra, not even having any lines. As the girl's pimp, veteran actor Denden in a single scene makes a big impression.

While not essential viewing, LSIL is a nice example of the director trying out small experiments in new settings.