Just Remembering

Daigo Matsui's 2022 Japanese film tells five years of a former couple's life backwards. Each episode takes place on 26 July, the birthday of the male character Teruo, and the story moves from the end toward the beginning, so the viewer watches how the relationship started already knowing how it ended. She is a taxi driver, he was a dancer, and the emptiness of pandemic-era Tokyo forms the background. Matsui makes no secret of his debt to Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth; footage from that film is used directly inside this one. The rapport between Sairi Ito and Sosuke Ikematsu is what gives the reverse chronology its emotional effect. The film had its world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival and won the audience award. Who it's for: viewers interested in Japanese independent cinema, relationship films told in reverse, and the influence of Jarmusch. Who it's not for: anyone who thinks knowing the destination kills the tension, or who will find the slow pace and low incident dull.