Takeshi Kitano's third film, "A Scene at the Sea", is an important film in the evolution of his career as a director. After the shot-to-nothing chance of his debut "Violent Cop" and the mad fantasy of "Boiling Point", this was a film in which his star quality couldn't put to use and his skills as a writer and director had to shine.
Shigeru (Claude Maki) is a deaf-mute binman in a seaside town with seemingly little going for him. While working, he finds a broken surf board left in the rubbish by the beach. He eyes it up and eventually takes it home to fix. With his trusty girlfriend, also deaf-mute Takako (Hiroko Oshima), by his side, he ventures down to the beach to try out his new hobby. But with no experience or instructor to guide him, the initial results are as expected.
But he perseveres and his skills start to develop. Saving together some money, he buys a better surfboard and becomes part of the local surf crew, performing well at competition. And that is pretty much that.
There are a couple of obvious differences in "A Scene at the Sea" from the rest of Kitano's directorial career: Firstly, it's one of his few films in which he doesn't star; and secondly, a complete lack of any real violence, indeed achieving a "Universal" rating in the UK.
The story for "Violent Cop" was fairly generic and "Boiling Point" barely had one; and nor really does "A Scene at the Sea". This is largely a nice tale of a young man with little going for him taking up a hobby and getting half-decent at it. We are, therefore, seeing more of Kitano as a director and how he develops his films.
Here Kitano keeps the still camera rolling to a near awkward extent - a trait that would feature in many of his subsequent works. Kitano almost wants to get his actors to be self-aware that the camera is watching them. This silence from the cast is naturally born out of the lead characters' senses, but awkward close-ups of the cast's faces is something Kitano has always liked to include.
We also see the Kitano theme of mimicking and replacements develop. The conclusion of "Violent Cop" sees Azuma and Nito replaced by younger sidekicks. Here, two locals who know of Shigeru follow him to the beach to watch him surf. At first they are bemused by his actions, but soon want to try it themselves. Buying a second-hand surfboard Shigeru rejected, they start to copy his self-taught approach and regularly feature at the beach alongside the more accomplished surfers. The pair are like a manzai duo that Kitano often likes to include in his films, clowning their way through as lovable idiots. Shigeru passes on his old gear to them, with their having to share a point of humour. This is an idea Kitano would again return to in "Kids Return", with Shinji followed by a trio of delinquents in everything that he tries. Whether younger boys trying to copy their seniors; or yakuza hierarchy bringing the guilt of responsibility, Kitano always uses these male relationships to bring comedy or sadness.
A more difficult aspect of the film is the role of Takako. She is given little direction in the film other than to serve as Shigeru's personal assistant. She helps him buy his surfboard and apply for competitions and neatly folds his clothes at the beach when he goes out to surf. As with pretty much all of his films, the female characters are defined by their relationships to the male leads rather than having their own formed characters and lives. Kitano was very much a Twentieth Century director.
Takako's love is silent not just in her sensory abilities, but in her actions which speak louder than words. She is more proactive than Shigeru in trying to give his life direction and is constantly by his side. Shigeru is himself a little naïve in love. When another young woman, who seems to move from surfer to surfer, gives him attention, Shigeru carries on as normal, unaware that this may hurt Takako. We can see what she does for him, but what is he doing for her? The key scene that shows something of the affection the two have for each other is, when returning home from buying the surfboard, Shigeru is not allowed on the bus with the board. He runs to keep up with the bus, with Takako eventually getting off and chasing back to him, as if they can't be apart for a moment. This is played to another key development in Kitano's career: his first soundtrack from Joe Hisaishi, a man who would give his films a new life and more arthouse feel.
But while "A Scene at the Sea" has many key traits of a Kitano film, the fact he does not appear in it removes his bleak, suicidal tendencies. Despite the end result being the same, there is a more positive feel throughout; light in its love story and comedy. It is a Kitano film for the whole family. The use of montage on conclusion gives a happy ending to what should be sad, making this both a film typical within his oeuvre, but also one completely unlike anything else he would make.
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