There’s nothing wrong with a film being a meditation on its subject–in this case, grief and renewal–but, like any meditation, there’s a risk of falling asleep. I’ll Be Your Mirror narrowly avoids tipping from languor into stupor, saved by a handful of transcendent moments and subtle performances, but the end result is a bit like the feeling of waking from an afternoon nap. You know something just happened, but the sense of the story fades away, leaving the vague impression of images and mood, and little sense of what it all means.
Written and directed by Bradley Rust Gray (and originally titled Blood), I’ll Be Your Mirror aspires to be a character study of Chloe (Carla Juri), a recent widow on a trip to Japan. A professional photographer, she aspires to capture images of quotidian life in Tokyo, but aside from a couple instances of fiddling with an old camera, there’s little evidence of her following through on that plan. Instead, she visits some old friends of her late husband, including Toshi (Takashi Ueno) and his young daughter, Futaba (Futaba Okazaki), with whom she forges the beginnings of a meaningful connection.
But even that two-sentence summary tells more of the story than the film itself does. The point of I’ll Be Your Mirror is not to follow a story arc or even a character arc, but to revel in the colors, textures and sensations of life as perceived by someone who is feeling estranged from all that. Scenes accumulate like collage, occasionally mixing in remembered moments with her late husband (Gustaf Skarsgård) but more often depicting seemingly random episodes in Chloe’s interactions with locals. While aiming to photograph a dance class, she ends up dancing instead. Taking a boat ride with a colleague, they chat and share platitudes that might be wisely minimal or might just be plainspoken because of her friend’s limited command of English. (Chloe never makes the effort to speak Japanese.)
Through it all, the camera observes as if waiting for something to happen. That might be a kind of commentary itself, as if Chloe is waiting for her life to accrue some meaning in the absence of her husband. But such an interpretation might also be an attempt by the viewer to assign significance to insignificant moments. While the script’s lack of exposition demonstrates faith in the viewer’s ability to gather some sense of the story from the context, the lack of plot structure drains any sense of narrative momentum. A hint of attraction between Toshi and Chloe presents the possibility of a romantic subplot, but it seems to bloom and then fizzle only within Chloe’s dream.
A handful of moments manage to convey deep feeling, especially a scene in which Chloe and Futaba take turns speaking to a child’s toy which echoes their words and intonation in a sing-songy robot voice. Here is the meaning behind the title, the sense that there’s power in feeling seen and heard, as if all we really need is to be acknowledged. Chloe’s developing intimacy with Toshi, while remaining asexual, echoes that message. It suggests that passion is too much to ask for, when all we really need is to see ourselves reflected in those around us. It’s a gentle message, but one which doesn’t really sustain a story arc where little is resolved or changed from the opening scene. I’ll Be Your Mirror is a character study that neglects to study its character very deeply, content to display the reflection on the surface.
Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing
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