“Scene 1, Summer, seaside.”
So read the scribbled notes of Li (Shim Eun-kyung), a screenwriter putting to paper a whirl of imagination. Until that point, Li had held a straight gaze, hand aloft, as if counting the beats of an unformulated tale. “A car at a dead end.” The pencil remains fixed in a grip between thumb and index finger. “A woman wakes up in the back seat.” This simple framing device sets in motion two stories: one that exists through Li’s creative vision, and one which concerns Li’s reality, particularly her life as a fledgling artist. The first narrative takes place in Summer, the second in Winter. Both focus on the relations of two people who have just met. The delicate interplay of each section constitutes the tempo and rhythm of this beguiling work, which foregrounds tranquillity and tenderness ahead of conflict and climax.
What’s striking about Li’s written love story is its averageness: the prettiness of its scenery (windy mountainsides), the bluntness of its symbolism (discovering a headless fish at the beach), the contrivance of its situations (sharing mitsumame under a rain-soaked shelter), and its nondiegetic embellishments (interposed sepia photographs, plaintive strings). The dynamic between the two main characters, Nagisa (Yuumi Kawai) and Natsuo (Mansaku Takada), is mute and stilted, and the most revealing moment is when the film is shown at a local college, inciting the class professor (Shirō Sano) to claim how “sexy” he found it. Under questioning from the students, Li is uncomfortable explaining her ideas and approach, and from this point we follow her development as she breaks from writing and travels to a snow-lathered village in the countryside.
Japanese filmmaker Sho Miyake has developed a reputation for the “radical compassion” of his output, and Two Seasons, Two Strangers (2025) is another earnest and reflexive piece, adapted from the manga Mr. Ben and His Igloo, A View of the Seaside by Yoshiharu Tsuge. The two-pronged plot of the movie invites the audience to query what it sees, specifically to interrogate the levels of mediation — what is truth translated into fiction, and vice versa — that constitute Li’s being and experience. Her equivalent stranger is a cynical innkeeper, Benzo (Shinichi Tsutsumi), who has separated from his wife and young child, and who appears generally mournful of his lot. His thesis on the artistic process is therefore a straightforward one: “A good work is how well it depicts human sadness.”
The pair’s interactions are intended to mirror, amplify and augment those of Li’s initial creation, and the latter segment of the film is far more stimulating and intriguing as a result. My assumption is that Miyake intends this distinction, and by creating this divide in how the stories are told, he is gesturing to a psychic connection between what Li can merely imagine and what she can actually experience. Shim, a Korean actor, is outstanding as the protagonist, conveying an entire shuttered world of existence in a pause or glance. It’s a sophisticated performance, and the glorious shot of her glasses misting in a bowl of ramen captures the alert, appealing image-making that characterises the second half of this wistful, intricate drama.
Joseph Owen, occasional film critic, is a research fellow at the University of Southampton.