Love Never to End
愛の流刑地
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A novelist strangles his lover at her request at the height of sex — the Watanabe Junichi formula at its most extreme.
On a summer night in Tokyo, the novelist Kikuji Murao strangles his lover, Fuyuka Irie, during sex, because she has begged him to: if he really loves her, he will kill her. He did not mean her to die. He calls the police himself and is arrested. To the detectives, and at first to the prosecutor, Miyuki Oribe, his claim that she asked for it is an excuse.
The interrogation and the trial take the affair back to its start. Kikuji had a hit with his first novel ten years ago and has written nothing since that mattered; he lives by teaching and writing criticism. In Kyoto, an acquaintance introduces him to Fuyuka, a married mother of three from Toyama who loves his books. He takes the bullet train from Tokyo for a couple of hours with her at a time. When her husband, Toru, is transferred to Tokyo, she starts coming to Kikuji's flat, and he begins writing again. She can no longer bear her husband's touch. One night she asks Kikuji to strangle her and, when he lets go, calls him a coward.
In court the prosecution charges murder; the defence argues that he killed her at her request, a lesser crime. A tape of Fuyuka asking him to kill her is admitted as evidence. Toru, who never knew Kikuji existed, breaks down on the stand. Oribe, who is having an affair with her own superior, presses Kikuji, and he shouts back at her: has she ever loved someone enough to want to die? Fuyuka's mother testifies that the day before, her daughter cooked the children a feast, made herself up with care and said she would have no regrets. The novel Kikuji wrote about their love sells in great numbers once the case is famous.
He is sentenced to eight years for murder. In his cell a parcel arrives from Fuyuka's mother: the book he signed for Fuyuka, with a letter from her inside. She wrote of her loveless home and of her resolve to end her life at the height of their forbidden love. Kikuji murmurs that he was, after all, the murderer she chose.
Starring
Etsushi Toyokawaas Kikuji Murao
A novelist with one old hit, who kills his married lover at her request and stands trial for murder.
Kikuji Murao’s story
Kikuji has written nothing that mattered since his first novel, ten years ago. He falls for Fuyuka the moment she is introduced to him in Kyoto, and begins writing again: a novel about their love that no publisher wants. On her birthday, asked whether he would die for her, he shakes his head. The first time she begs him to kill her, he stops, and she calls him a coward. On the night of the fireworks he does as she asks, and she dies. He calls the police himself. In court he shouts at the prosecutor that she has never loved anyone enough to want to die. Sentenced to eight years, he reads the letter Fuyuka left in his book and murmurs that he was, after all, the murderer she chose.
Shinobu Terajimaas Fuyuka Irie
A married mother of three who loved Kikuji's novels, and who asks him, at the height of their affair, to kill her.
Fuyuka Irie’s story
Fuyuka lives in Kyoto with her husband, Toru, and their three children when a friend introduces her to the novelist whose books she has long read. She holds the novel he writes about them like a child of theirs. Moved to Tokyo, she starts coming to Kikuji's flat and can no longer bear her husband's touch. On her birthday she tells Kikuji she is so happy she could die, and that night begs him to kill her; when he stops, she calls him a coward. The day before the fireworks she cooks her children a feast, makes herself up with care and says she will have no regrets. That night she dies at his hands. Her letter tells of a loveless home and her resolve to die at the height of their love.
Kyoko Hasegawaas Miyuki Oribe
The prosecutor on the case, who is having an affair with her own superior and comes to feel for Fuyuka.
Toru Nakamuraas Toru Irie
Fuyuka's husband, absorbed in his work, who never knew Kikuji existed until his wife was dead.
Why it matters
Love Never to End asks its audience to accept that a woman can want to die at the height of an affair, and that the man who kills her at her request may be the truest lover in the room. Junichi Watanabe's novel ran for more than a year in the morning edition of the Nikkei, Japan's business daily, and the film carries its fantasy into a courtroom. What the court sees is harder to romanticise: a woman strangled during sex, three children without a mother, a husband who never knew the other man existed. Choking during sex is sometimes talked about as play; this story shows how thin that line is, and the court in the film will not treat a request to die as consent to be killed. The film leans towards the lovers' version. It leaves open whose account of love survives, when one of the two can speak only through a letter.