At first, the new Japanese film Egoist want you to resist any pity you might have for its protagonist. The opening scenes show a handsome, successful man in his thirties with a good job, better fashion sense and a tasteful condo in Tokyo. But once we spend more time with this man, we get a strong sense of ennui and melancholy from him. The signifiers of success in his life are a shield for wounds he can barely articulate. Director Daishi Matsunaga follows this man through love and heartache, an unconventional journey that ultimately earns him a sense of peace. All this material would be affecting, even tragic, except somehow the film never quite finds the right note for the material. Each sad scene is a touch too maudlin, and by keeping the camera so close on its subjects, it somehow distorts the lives of its characters.
When we first see Kôsuke (Ryohei Suzuki), he is at a fashion shoot for a glitzy magazine where he is one of the editors. He speaks in clipped shorthand, and his tailored clothes give the impression he is in complete control. It is only when we meet his friends that we sense something is wrong. Kôsuke is gay, and later he gets together with a group of other gay men for dinner and drinks. They discuss relationships, and Kôsuke makes a confession: he cannot figure out why, for the life of him, he is so unlucky in love.
Surely the friends can all sense how he is being more candid than usual, and yet they do not dwell on the confession, and instead come up with a practical solution. Someone sets him up with Ryûta (Hio Miyazawa), a handsome personal trainer in his mid-twenties. Of course, Kôsuke and Ryûta are attracted to one another, and they began a relationship where Kôsuke’s affection is reciprocated – just only up to a point.
There are several sex scenes in Egoist, and Matsunaga’s preferred style of shooting is to get close to his actors, almost like his camera is a participant in the action. The only trouble is that, despite the intimate contact between these handsome men, there is little physical chemistry between them. The sex unfolds more like calisthenics rather than anything more erotic. Normally that would not be a huge issue, except so much of the relationship between Kôsuke and Ryûta hinges on how they feel about one another. Their desire is perfunctory, not primal. As the film continues and they break up or reconcile, it is hard to see why Kôsuke is so smitten.
Luckily, there is an important third character that adds a layer of complication to this romance. We meet Ryûta’s kind mother Taeko (Sawako Agawa), and she strikes a tender friendship with Kôsuke. This friendship has an extra level of meaning for the young man, who lost his own mother when he was a teenager and never quite recovered. Ryûta is shy and protective of his identity as a gay man, and so he describes Kôsuke as his “boss” and “friend” when they first are introduced. Part of the tension and drama of Egoist is how these three people negotiate a situation that should not be complicated – Taeko is no bigot – and yet Ryûta is so shy they have no choice but to be delicate. This is where Egoist becomes more compelling: the scope expands beyond a relationship drama, and the details of this blossoming family unit add layers of irony and heartbreak.
Egoist is based on an autobiographical novel by the writer Makoto Takayama, so there is little reason to doubt there is a kernel of truth to each twist. Some of the plot points are downright weepy, and so Matsunaga’s solution is to keep his characters from emoting too much, except for fleeting moments where tragedy gets too much for them. The approach is imperfect, and yet it is hard to fault the actors or screenplay, since they offer a compelling slice of life. By the time the film winds down and Kôsuke finally finds the connection that’s been eluding him, it is satisfying in a way that neither him nor the other party could have ever expected. It is a fitting conclusion, a reminder that connection and happiness can come from sources we least suspect, and yet the lopsided narrative means the film’s semi-sexy first half never connects with the second, which is more reserved and lowkey. It is a strange problem, one that can only happen in movies, where the issue is we only care about the lead character some of the time.
Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing
The post Egoist appeared first on Spectrum Culture.