Two Seasons, Two Strangers

In the middle of summer, Nagisa, a tourist, and Natsuo, a local, meet in a seaside town and embark on a lush summer romance, full of deep-sea blues and wind-swept summer dresses. Their vacant gazes mirror each other as they exchange awkward words and wade through the rain-soaked ocean. In the middle of winter, the screenwriter Li travels to a snowy resort, where she meets the divorced innkeeper Benz. Their rambling conversations ultimately lead them to an unexpected adventure.

In his fifth film, the director Shô Miyake invites us to step out of our routine and see the wonder of the world through the eyes of a stranger. Words dull our senses. Through image and movement, we come to know ourselves and others. Film is therefore the ideal vehicle for diving into unknown expanses and desolate holiday destinations in search of connection and healing.

Miyake masterfully strikes a wide range of chords, from melancholic to humorous, tragic to poetic, while delicately engaging the viewer with whimsical stories about two couples and reflections on the artistic process. Themes of loneliness, creative block, and isolation permeate the film, and the emotionally intelligent character study blends with the beauty of the surrounding landscape (beautifully captured by Yuta Tsukinaga’s camera) and the multiple interpolations of mise en abyme.

The split structure of the film within a film is reminiscent of Hong Sang-soo, but Two Seasons, Two Strangers builds its story – adapted from two manga by the legendary Yoshiharu Tsuge – on a foundation of shimmering, serendipitous images; pleasantly superficial, yet intensely profound, like the way steam from a bowl of noodles fogs up glasses, or the revelation of a landscape as a train emerges from a tunnel. With his new title, also the winner of the Golden Leopard at Locarno, Miyake confirms his status as a master of deceptively still, sensitive and witty studies of surprising human connection.