A Girl Missing

Ichiko is a home care nurse who has looked after the same family's elderly grandmother for years and is close to both daughters. One day the younger girl is abducted. It emerges shortly afterwards that the culprit is Ichiko's nephew. She took no part in it and knew nothing; she loses everything anyway. The press arrives at her door, the family removes her from the house, her engagement ends. The film tells what comes after, following a woman who has changed her name and her hair. Koji Fukada writes and directs. Mariko Tsutsui plays Ichiko. The narrative runs in two times and which part comes first is not stated at the outset; the viewer joins them slowly. The subject is not the crime but the uselessness of innocence. Ichiko did nothing and it changes nothing; how a society decides to erase a person is what the narrative is about. In the second half the character takes revenge, and its target is not the expected person; that choice is the most uncomfortable thing in the film. Fukada was known for Harmonium, and the same cold telling and the same pattern of slow ruin are here. Mariko Tsutsui's performance carries two different characters in one face, and the role was much discussed at international festivals. Who it is for: viewers who like slow Japanese drama and films about social exclusion. Who it is not for: the pace is very slow, the telling is deliberately cold, and the ending is left unresolved.