Asako I & II: The Vagueness of Love.

I don't think there can be a better day than February 14th to comment on this movie.

Asako I & II (寝ても冷めても) is a Japanese film of 2018, directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi. Based on the homonym novel by Tomoka Shibasaki, it is one of the movies that conform the film series Nuevos Talentos en el Cine Japonés Actual from Cineteca Madrid.

The film tells the story of Asako, an Osaka-born girl whose boyfriend, Baku, disappears; and her latter love story with Ryôhei, terribly similar to her previous lover. The plot is not too innovative, it tells the events in chronological order, not giving place to any narrative tricks. However, it is in this simplicity where its complexity resides; through an apparently monotone story, it proposes a very controversial question to the spectator: What is love?. The film leaves aside all types of idealization to present the unpleasant reality of the human selfishness. Most of the people might think that Asako doesn't love her boyfriend for what she does, but she keeps claiming the opposite; then, what should we believe?.

If this question arises within you after watching the movie, that means you reached its true message: we are nobody to define what something as complex as love is; it can take as many different forms as human beings there are in the world. Each person feels and conveys it in their own way. And, bearing in mind that love has infinite definitions, we may assume that not all of them are pleasant: being in love, that doesn't stop you from hurting your beloved.

I could start talking about the origin of the contemporary conception of love and the idealization of the human being, but I might leave that for another post. All in all, this movie, although it might feel a little bit dull at times, would be labeled as "necessary", at least by me; a very powerful tool for creating a more realistic view of the world.

Punctuation: 8/10.