New Restoration

“Magical … Somai offers one of the most distinctive, powerful visions of recent cinema anywhere.”

David Cairns, MUBI Notebook

The awareness of Japanese director Somai Shinji outside Japan has undergone an astonishing reversal in recent years. Once a figure of mostly name-drop notability—Hamaguchi Ryusuke, Kurosawa Kiyoshi, and Kore-eda Hirokazu all regard him as an idol—the steady release of Somai’s restored films in North America has amounted to a series of jaw-slacking revelations, one (Typhoon Club) after another (Moving). That trend doesn’t falter with The Friends. Set over the dog days of a summer vacation, it chronicles—in exemplary crane-assisted, continuous-take Somai fashion—the friendship between three death-obsessed classmates and a neighbourhood recluse whose advanced years (and presumed imminent demise) first entices the boys to peer over his overgrown-garden wall. Though powered by big-heartedness and an exuberant sense of play—Somai’s child actors are, as ever, energy incarnate—The Friends doesn’t assuage the hard truths of life, not least the lessons of impermanence, that kismet that comes for all.

In Japanese with English subtitles

“A delicate gem from one of Japanese cinema’s most revered stylists, The Friends finds the late Somai Shinji at his most tender and unadorned … A revelatory rediscovery and a natural companion to Moving.”

Film at Lincoln Center
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