Glasses

Naoko Ogigami's 2007 Japanese film follows a woman from the city on holiday on an island with no mobile reception, meeting the odd inhabitants there. The owner of the guesthouse, a woman who leads a kind of exercise on the beach each morning, and an arrangement in which nobody asks about your past; Taeko resists at first, then stays. Ogigami's cinema rests on rhythm rather than plot: preparing food, the sea, waiting. What the film argues is that slowness is a skill and has to be learned. That choice sets up a contract that depends on the viewer's patience; restful for some, empty for others. The food scenes in particular are beautifully shot. Who it's for: viewers who like slow Japanese films and cinema of everyday life. Who it's not for: anyone wanting incident, or who will find a story with no conflict resolved incomplete.