Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
偶然と想像
The Moonlight essay
CinemaWheel of Fortune and Fantasy and the Alternate Lives Built From Unsaid DesireRead the essayStoryline
The whole story, ending included.
Three short stories of talk — an ex-lover's triangle, a seduction trap, a mistaken reunion — where words are the erotic act.
Three stories, each set going by a coincidence.
In "Magic (or Something Less Assuring)", Meiko, a model, listens in a taxi as her best friend, Tsugumi, describes a first meeting that felt like magic: fifteen hours of talk with a man who, she says, never got over an old girlfriend. Meiko realises the man is Kazuaki, her own former boyfriend. She goes to his office, repeats everything Tsugumi told her, and hints they could start again; they argue, he holds her, and she runs off. Three days later, in a café, Tsugumi introduces him to Meiko. Meiko imagines blurting out the truth and making him choose. Instead she excuses herself, leaving the two to plan their next date.
In "Door Wide Open", Sasaki, a student refused a pass by his French professor, Segawa, loses the television job that depended on it. When Segawa wins the Akutagawa Prize, Sasaki talks Nao, a married mother who is his casual lover, into a honey trap. She visits Segawa, who insists the door stay open, and reads him an explicit passage from his novel while secretly recording. He does not take the bait. They talk honestly instead, and he asks for the recording of her voice. She agrees to send it, on condition that he use it once to pleasure himself, and he promises. At home she mistypes the address, the file goes to the wrong person, and the scandal ends his career and her marriage. Five years later she meets Sasaki on a bus. He is an editor now and feels no remorse. As she gets off, she kisses him.
In "Once Again", set in a near future where a computer virus has driven people off the internet, Natsuko comes back from Tokyo for her girls' school reunion, hoping to see the girl she loved twenty years ago. On an escalator she spots a woman she takes to be her, and is invited home. Slowly they realise neither is who the other thought. Aya offers to play the lost love, so that Natsuko can say at last what she never said. Then Natsuko plays the classmate Aya once admired, and Aya admits the doubts beneath her comfortable married life. They part at the station, and Aya runs back to hold her.
Starring
Kotone Furukawaas Meiko
A model who discovers that her best friend's new love is her own former boyfriend.
Meiko’s story
Riding home in a taxi after a shoot, Meiko listens as Tsugumi describes a man she talked with for fifteen hours, and congratulates her. Then she has the driver turn round. At Kazuaki's office, late at night, she repeats everything Tsugumi said, calls herself something less assuring than magic, and lets him think they might start again; they quarrel, he holds her, and she runs out. Three days later, in a café, Tsugumi's date arrives, and it is Kazuaki. Meiko imagines telling them everything and making him choose. Instead she leaves them to it, lets Tsugumi wave goodbye through the glass, and walks off alone, stopping to photograph a view of building work and passing trains.
Hyunrias Tsugumi
Meiko's best friend, enchanted by a man she has just met and unaware of his past with Meiko.
Katsuki Morias Nao
A married mother who agrees to set a honey trap for a prize-winning professor and finds herself talking to him honestly.
Nao’s story
Nao, a mature student, has a much younger classmate, Sasaki, as her lover. When the professor who failed him wins the Akutagawa Prize, Sasaki talks her into a trap. In Segawa's office, with the door kept open, she reads aloud an explicit passage from his novel while her phone records, and gets nowhere. Instead they talk. He tells her that her voice moved him; she tells him how worthless she feels and how afraid she is of being hated. He asks for the recording, and she promises to send it. At home she mistypes his address, the file reaches the wrong person, and the scandal ends his career and her marriage. Five years later, divorced and working as a copywriter, she meets Sasaki on a bus. Getting off, she kisses him and waves from the pavement.
Kiyohiko Shibukawaas Segawa
A stern French professor and new Akutagawa Prize winner, who keeps his office door open to guard against scandal.
Fusako Urabeas Natsuko
A woman who returns for a school reunion hoping to find the girl she loved twenty years ago.
Natsuko’s story
Natsuko comes back from Tokyo to Sendai for her girls' school reunion after twenty years, and does not see the one she came for. Leaving, she passes a woman on the station escalator whom she takes for her, and is invited home. Over tea, each realises she has mistaken the other. Aya offers to play the lost girl, and Natsuko says what she never said: that they had planned to live together in Tokyo, and that when the girl rang to say she had a boyfriend, Natsuko could not tell her she could not live without her. On the way to the station, Natsuko plays in turn the classmate Aya once admired, and Aya admits the doubts beneath her family life. They part, and then Aya, having remembered her friend's name, runs back and holds her.
Aoba Kawaias Aya
A married woman Natsuko mistakes for her lost love, who agrees to play the part.
Why it matters
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is about how much of desire lives in speech. Its three stories contain almost no lovemaking. What moves them is talk: a confession overheard in a taxi, a passage read aloud in an office with the door open, a stranger willing to play someone else so that something can finally be said. Chance sets each story going, and imagination, the willingness to pretend, is what lets people tell the truth. Its women drive the stories and bear their costs: one whose recording of her own voice ends a career and her marriage, another who has carried an unspoken love for twenty years. Ryusuke Hamaguchi made it alongside Drive My Car, and it won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 2021. What it leaves is tender and a little unsettling: how often what sets a person free is a role played with a stranger.