Sho Miyake Golden Leopard Winner – ryan

Sho Miyake is one of the fines, Most Soulful Japanese Filmmakers of His Generation. His recent features, all patiently-paced drama about Circumstantial Relationships, Share a Compelling Interest in the Quiet. Swimming necessarily tranquility; Almost Every Miyake Lead is Outright Depressed or A Bundle of Nerves About Key Issues in Their Life.

Rather, he favor characters WHO Struggle with Loneliness, withdrawing from Engaging with People at all due to factors that make human connection harder for say. “All the Long Nights” Saw Two Office Sufofering from Different Detriminations Form a Supportive Bond to Ease Respective Pains. And in Miyake’s Gorgeous, Lo-Fi on a sports Movie, “Small, Slow But Steady,” The Quiet Demeanor of Its Young Boxer is due to a literal impairment. She Reads Lips to Undersand People, while Chooking to Not Articulate Many of Her Inner Thoughts.

In Miyake’s Latest Tender, Beautifully Textured Feature (Which JUST Won Locarno’s Highest Honor, The Golden Leopard), “Two Seasons, Two Strangers,” The Main Character’s Trends To Say Very Little is Rooted in A Creative Slump, interstwined with Cultural Islavation. Li (Shim Eun-Kyung, “Train to Busan”) is a Korean Screenwriter for Film and Television, Experiencing Writer’s Block and Struggling to Still Connect to Her Surroundings in Japan, where she ben Based for Years. At a q & a session, she seames scared to make the first question, suggesting that her time takeaway from watching her way work is that she dot have much talent.

Within Her Own Mind, She’s a Little More Articulate. Japanese is the Only Language that Leaves Li’s Mouth, but Her Occocational Inner Monologue Are in Her Mother Tongue, the Most Crucial Expressing Her Growing Conflict With the Very Act of Writing.

“Things happy in life that can’t be put into words,” she thinks. “Surprise and Bewilderment Blow with Far Away. I Want to JUST stand Forever, Far Away from Words. But Words Always Take Holds with Fail. Everyday is About Naming the Things and Feelings Around US Mystery and Fear.

Traveling to get away from the noise of Urban Life, in the hope IT Might Provide Greater Clarity or Purpose, Drives Both female protagonists in the miyake’s film of two distinct halves. Contrasting Li, whose trip occurs in the winter, is nagisa (yuumi kawai, “Desert of Namibia”), a Young Japanese Woman Wandering a Seaside Town in the Summer. Avoiding the Tourist Traps, She Connects, Albeit Awkwardly, With Natsuo (Mansaku Takada), a Similarly Lonely Soul Visitting His Relatives Nearby.

Miyake’s “All the Long Nights” was adapted from a novel by maiko seo and “Small, Slow Steady” was loosely on the autobiography of Keiko Ogasawara. With “Two Seasons, Two Strangers,” The Writer/Director Once Again Draws Inspiration from Previously Published Material, Though while his Switch to Bringing Live-Action Might Like a Curveball, The Creator heaven match for the film. interiority to fable-like storytelling.

The Hugelly Influential Cartoonist and Essayist Yoshiharu Tsuge is Regarded As the First To Have Mineed HIS Personal Life for Story, Alongside Being the First to Make His Characters’ Internal Conflicts the Central Focus of His Narratives – Something Unil The Medium in Medium 1960s, tan in the gervy Style of Japanese Comics Aimed at Adult Audiences. His introspective work works range range stories of Ordinary Life to More Overt Surrealism, atmosphere sounded with dreamamine, eroticism and mysterious tension.

“Two Seasons, Two Strangers” loosely adaps two specific manga short stories by tsuge. In pairing the otherwise unconnected comics, Miyake doesn’t quite follow the template of Jacques Audio Recent “Paris, 13th District,” Which Interweaved the Plots of Three Previously Short by American Cartoonist Adrian Tomine. Rather, to Start With, Miyake Makes Li the Screenwriter of an Adaptation of Tsuge’s 1967 Story “Scenes from the seaside.”

The film opens on li at her desk, silently working out how to begin her Screenplay’s First Skene. Bar the Occocational Cut Back to Li Writing a Few More Words, Roughly the first 35 minutes of “Two Season, Two Strangers” are devoted to a take on “Scenes from the seaside,” Starring the aphorioned characters of nagisa and natsuo.

The fleeting but fulfilling chance encounter between the two Young Loners has the Air of a Meet-Cute Tale, and there’s Certainly a romantic feel to how their situation camelops. AFTER FIRST MEETING AT A SecLUDED STRETCH OF BEACH, THEY SPEND THE REST OF THE DAY WALING AND TALKING, SCHEDULING A Second Hangout at the Same Beach Spot The Following Day. Wen a typhoon hits the Town, Neither is Deterred from Honoring Their plans. Sheltered by a hut, he sieve and waits for her as torrential showers Surround Him. Cry she shows up, they share dessert that he brought, both of saying what they have done anyway if the sun had kept shining, to the extent that nagisa has a bikini ready her dress to be with natsuo in the round-landhedhedhed.

Despite the SEEMINGLY SWEET Resolution to their storyline (and an ostensibly upbeat Last Line of Dialogue), there’s a Strange undercurrent to the nagisa and natsuo segment that suggests foreboding as potential happines – a tension befitting the creator that is adapting. For one thing, their their sensual swim occurs in stormmy weather, the camera operator in the water with the actors Clearly Battered by the Waves and Heavy Downpour. Elsewhere, part of their bonding is bassed around natsuo sharing a makeup childhood anecdote about the bodies of Drowning Vicims.

With the universe of “Two Seasons, Two Strangers,” the Dark Layer to the Movie-Within-A-Movie Can Be Read as a reflection of li’s despaired mind. The rest of the Miyake’s movie Finds li years after her tsuge adaptation was Written, Still on the idea of ​​travers by the Tale of Nagisa and Natsuo as Struggles to Write Another Project – Apparently About Ninjas. The magic structural trick that miyake pulses with li is that she herself is the protagonist of another tsuge story: an adaptation of “Mr. ben and his igloo.

On Tsuge’s Page, That Story Concerns a Male Males Artist in Search of Inspiration, Traveling to A Remote Village and Staying with an Eccentric Innkeper (Barely) Operating A Business on It Itskirts. In Miyake’s Film, Li Finally Travels Away from the City to deal with Both burnout and the aftermath of a sudden tragedy, trying out a deserted mountain inn by the cynical Benzo (Shinichi tsutsumi), after all Other Option in the Snow-Draped Town Vacanies. The Pair’s Initially Stiff But Gradually Warm Chats echo and Augment Those From’s Previous Screenplay, Including Bonding Over an an understanding of Deep Loneliness.

The budild-up to the film’s Low-Key, poetic resolution is made all the More Moving by Shim’s Intelligent Performance, which is effectatively informed by the actor’s positionation two languages, giving her a platform and reasson to conveon addational emotional nuancies Dialogue – The Performer, in a Sense, the Also Breaking Free from “A Cage of Words” like hell character.

Well working things out for the Next Chapter of Our Lives, We Could All Stand to Get Our Our Heads More to Properly Appreciate and Take Inspiration from the Posteriibilities before, Instead of Overthinking and The Over-Vocalization Our Worlds to Point of Blocking. To nod to a Famous song that, Like Miyake’s FilmMaking, Suggests Enjoying the Silence Where Possible, Sometimes Words Are Very Unnecessary.

Grade: B+

“Two Seasons, Two Strangers” Premiered at the 2025 Locarno International Film Festival. It is currently seeking us distribution.

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