Narratage
ナラタージュ
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A former student and her teacher, neither able to leave — the ethics of a love that should not have started.
On a night of heavy rain, Izumi Kudo is working late at a film company. Her junior colleague Miyazawa comes in soaked, and she takes out a pocket watch that no longer runs. It was a gift from Takashi Hayama, and the rain brings back the love that nearly broke her.
In her last year of high school Izumi was lonely and out of place, until Hayama, a social-studies teacher, invited her into the drama club he ran. She fell in love with him, and he came to lean on her. On her graduation day, while she was still his pupil, they kissed. Nothing followed. Two years later, as a university student, she gets a call: the drama club is down to three members and needs help with its farewell production. Izumi joins, with her old classmates Shio and Kurokawa and Kurokawa's friend Reiji Ono, and the weekly rehearsals draw her and Hayama close again. One rainy night he phones her, drunk, and she takes him home, where she learns what he has hidden: he never divorced. His wife, Miyuki, fell mentally ill and lives apart with her parents, and he is still waiting for her.
Hurt, Izumi accepts Ono, who takes her to his family home in the country and asks her out. But he grows jealous of Hayama, reads a letter she wrote to him, and turns possessive. Then Yuzuko, a girl in the drama club who had been raped by a stranger, takes her own life. At the hospital Izumi sees how shaken Hayama is. She apologises to Ono, leaves him and runs to Hayama, and they hold each other. Hayama tells her he has decided to transfer and go back to his wife. Izumi accepts it and tells him she loves him; he says he loves her too. They spend one last night together, and in the morning he gives her his pocket watch. She leaves first, and he comes out to watch her go.
Back in the present, Izumi has stayed at the office all night. The rain has stopped, and it is getting light.
Starring
Jun Matsumotoas Takashi Hayama
Izumi's high-school social-studies teacher and drama-club adviser, still married to a wife who lives apart, who comes to depend on Izumi.
Takashi Hayama’s story
Hayama, a social-studies teacher, brings Izumi, bullied and alone, into the drama club he runs, and comes to lean on her. He tells her he has split up with his wife, and on her graduation day he kisses her, says sorry, and lets it end there. Two years later he calls her back to help with a play. Drunk one rainy night after his father-in-law asks him to see his wife again, he calls Izumi, who finds he never divorced. He holds her but goes no further. When Yuzuko, a pupil in the club, takes her own life, he blames himself. Izumi comes back, and he tells her he leaned on her and is going back to his wife. After one night together he gives her the pocket watch his father left him, and watches her train pull away.
Kasumi Arimuraas Izumi Kudo
A lonely student rescued by her teacher's kindness, who carries her love for him through university and beyond.
Izumi Kudo’s story
Bullied at high school until she wants to die, Izumi is drawn into the drama club by Hayama, a teacher, and falls for him. On her graduation day he kisses her, says sorry, and nothing follows. Two years later, helping with the club's play, she takes him home drunk one rainy night and discovers he never divorced. Hurt, she goes out with Ono, whose jealousy turns into control. When Yuzuko, a pupil in the club, takes her own life after being raped by a stranger, Izumi leaves Ono and runs barefoot to Hayama. He is going back to his wife; she tells him she loves him, and they spend one night together. He gives her his father's pocket watch. In the present, a colleague tells her that the Portuguese words engraved in it mean "May you be happy".
Kentaro Sakaguchias Reiji Ono
A university student who helps with the play, falls for Izumi and, knowing she loves Hayama, grows jealous and possessive.
Reiji Ono’s story
Ono, a friend of Kurokawa's with stage experience, joins the club's farewell production and falls for Izumi. He puts her in a pair of shoes he has made and declares himself; she takes them off and leaves. After the performance he takes her to his family home in the country and asks again, and she says yes, though he knows she loves Hayama. Soon he is jealous and controlling: he reads the letter she once wrote to Hayama, and when she rings him, frightened of being followed, he tells her not to lean on him only when she is in trouble. When she says she must go back to Hayama, he makes her kneel and apologise, holds her and says he will not let her go, then tells her to leave the shoes behind. She walks out barefoot.
Mikako Ichikawaas Miyuki Hayama
Hayama's wife, who became mentally ill and lives apart from him, and to whom he finally decides to return.
Koji Setoas Keita Miyazawa
Izumi's junior colleague at the film company in the present day, with her on the rainy night the film begins.
Why it matters
Narratage, a film term for narration laid over flashback, tells the kind of love story romance films usually tidy away: between a teacher and a former pupil, begun while she was in his class and resumed at university, with a wife he has never left. The issues are power and dependence between an adult and someone he taught, a love conducted in half-truths, and the harm that spreads to others: a boyfriend turned possessive, a pupil whose despair nobody saw in time. Isao Yukisada said he wanted to show that real love is not glittering, and even to wound young audiences a little. Critics abroad divided: Variety found it fully in touch with its very real emotions, while the South China Morning Post judged that it had stepped too far out of the line of ethics. What remains is the stopped watch: what a first love takes from a life, and whether it was ever quite love.