Akiko Oku rethinks the boy-meets-girl formula

Oku Akikotitle at competitions in Tokyo”She taught me intuitionThis seems to be in keeping with the director’s signature style of romantic drama genre. It’s a taste that Oku has developed through a string of films that combine comedy and pathos, recognizable protagonists and universal themes that have appealed to audiences around the world.

Based on the novel by comedian Fukutoku Shusuke, her latest, Oku tells the magazine Tokyo International Film FestivalThe main venue at Hibiya in the city center is “more autobiographical than usual – I feel like I’m telling my story.” But instead of the twentysomething heroines who have been central to many of her previous films, including her 2017 Tokyo Audience Award-winning film Touch All You Want, her protagonist in Serendipity is a nerdy a college student named Konishi, played by Hagiwara. Riku. “I’ve had a male character in a short film, but never in a feature film before,” says Oku.

Konishi, however, shares screen time with two very individual women – Hana (Kawaii Yumi), a lonely classmate who more than matches him in terms of weirdness and seems to be his soulmate, and Sacchan (Ito Aoi), an aspiring musician, who works with him. in a public bath and is secretly in love with him. “Boy and girl movies like this usually only portray the male side, but I didn’t like that,” says Oku. “I wanted to show the essence of the girls he meets and how much the boy hurts them.”

In the case of the effervescent but sensitive Sacchan, Oku expressed this essence by writing a long monologue that Ito delivers in one burst. “Those long lines by Sakchan were what attracted me to the novel in the first place, so I wrote the script without changing the taste of the novel,” says Oku. “Actually, when I first read it, I knew I didn’t want to change it.” They also help make “Serendipity” a standout piece that defies formula.

The message of the film, according to Oku, is that “you have to live your life aware of the fact that you have hurt people.” “In the novel, Konishi gets married, but I don’t know what will happen to him next,” she continues. “What I do know is that he will remember how he hurt someone. These are the kind of things you never forget.”

After the film’s world premiere at TIFF on Tuesday, Oku said she spent about an hour signing autographs and talking with fans. “One girl from China told me that today was the best kept secret of her life,” she says, without going into detail.