Akiko works as a call girl in Tokyo; we first meet her in a bar where she is on the phone to her boyfriend. He clearly doesn't trust her as he keeps asking her questions and refuses to believe that she is just with a girlfriend. When she hangs up she returns to talking with a man; he has arranged for her to spend the night with somebody 'important'
she isn't keen to go as she wants to see her grandmother and she has an exam in the morning. Eventually she gives in to the pressure and is driven to the man's house. It turns out he is an elderly retired professor who is more interested in having dinner with her than sleeping with her. The next morning he drives her to university and sees her boyfriend confront her, the boyfriend then approaches the car and, assuming the old man is Akiko's grandfather gets in and talks about his desire to marry Akiko. An awkward situation is averted but later when he learns the old man isn't Akiko's grandfather he gets violent.
If you want films to be fast paced them this isn't going to be for you; to say the pace is gentle is an understatement! Director Abbas Kiarostami shows things that don't normally appear in films; the elderly man doses off at traffic lights; this is not a hint that he will cause an accident just an old man feeling tired. Similarly the camera doesn't always show the people we expect it to; we don't see the old man's neighbour as she asks him to move his car and when there is some action it is off screen. Some may find these techniques boring or even pretentious but I found it interesting in the way that it drew me into the story; these felt like real people who one just happens to be watching for a short while. The ending will be a problem for some viewers as well; it certainly came as a shock to me; just as it looks as if something is going to happen it ends so don't expect any resolution. The cast perform well; Rin Takanashi brings a vulnerability to the role of Akiko, Tadashi Okuno is good as Takashi, the old man, and Ryo Kase somehow manages to be threatening but not totally unsympathetic as Akiko's boyfriend Noriaki. Overall I'd recommend this to anybody looking for something a little different.
These comments are based on watching the film in Japanese with English subtitles.
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