「それが孤独ですか。」「違う。痛みだ。」
BANDAGE (2010)
Starring: Akanishi Jin, Kitano Kii, Ito Ayumi, Kora Kengo, and Shibamoto Yuki
Screenplay: Iwai Shunji
Director: Kobayashi Takeshi
Plot summary: High school student Asako (Kitano Kii) accompanies her best friend to indie band LANDS’ concert, after which they sneak backstage and end up going to a bar with the band. The band’s hard-nosed manager (Ito Ayumi) kicks the two out of the gathering, but not before the vocalist, Natsu (Akanishi Jin), takes a liking to Asako. Asako and Natsu strike up an unsteady friendship and through a twist of fate, Asako becomes LANDS’ co-manager. The film follows the band as they struggle through the early 90’s rock music scene, and Asako as she struggles to define herself.
“Sono kanashimi mo kurushimi mo sono itami mo todokanai”
(“That sadness, that suffering, that pain won’t reach me…”)
So say the lyrics of Hatachi no Sensou, the LANDS song that becomes a recurring theme of the film. The sentiment seems to be shared by the characters in Shunji Iwai’s latest offering. Their music is their bandage, a protective barrier between the outside world and the emotional wounds that they’re too afraid to cure for good. Bandage explores the idea that the feeling of loneliness and emotional isolation is something which, through fearfulness and selfishness, we bring upon ourselves.
Iwai may have tackled themes of isolation and loneliness to greater effect in All About Lily Chou Chou and PiCNiC, but Bandage’s point of view also deserves serious consideration; although the film’s conventional plot structure seems to suggest that Iwai is running out of new perspectives on the subject, Bandage feels fresh in its simplicity. All three films feature the same pure, organic aesthetic that Iwai has become known for, but Bandage is one thing that the other two are not: straightforward. In the context of Iwai’s oeuvre, this simplism becomes an asset; Iwai typically films his own screenplays, but having Kobayashi at the helm this time gives us a degree of separation from Iwai’s unique sensibilities, and his more conventional approach to the script makes something new out of what could have been a rehash of Iwai’s pet themes and quirks.
Aside from Iwai’s writing, the obvious fascination here is Akanishi and his major film debut. As Natsu, the lead singer of LANDS, Akanishi exudes effortless narcissism, capriciousness, and selfishness-seemingly, a natural translation of the real Akanishi’s public persona. Maybe I should save my surprise about how well he’s able to inhabit his character for when he’s playing a role not quite so reminiscent of his actual life (I mean, a guy with a playboy reputation, seemingly overdeveloped ego, and dubious rapport with his bandmates… stop me if you’ve heard this one before), but what was really impressive about Akanishi’s performance is how little I thought about his persona while watching it, despite the surface similarities between him and his role. He depicts Natsu with a (sometimes amusing, sometimes pathetic) drunken swagger, the portrait of a emotionally-stunted young man so ill-equipped to engage with reality that he’s begun forcing a persona as a replacement for a personality-and to his credit, it always feels like Natsu, not Akanishi, is the one doing the acting. The layers in Akanishi’s performance are transparent exactly where they should be, allowing the viewer to see beyond the bravado to what Natsu really is: an aimless, insecure guy from Gunma-ken with no prospects other than his music. It’s a given that some climactic event is going to cause the band to break down, because that’s the kind of movie this is, but Natsu’s personal breakdown is slower, sadder…and Akanishi rides it well. The rest of the cast are uniformly believable and engaging, especially doe-eyed Kitano Kii, who, anchoring Akanishi’s Natsu, pulls off a perfect balancing act between delicateness and determination.
Belying its commercial image, Bandage is moving in that quiet way not atypical of Iwai’s films and gracefully navigates the divide between simple and shallow. Not nearly as heavy as Lily Chou Chou, nor quite as quirky as PiCNiC, Bandage is the more accessible alternate route into Iwai’s world-and while it may not be life-changing, it’s worth the trip.