The Tokyo Night Sky Is Always the Densest Shade of Blue

Yuya Ishii's 2017 film began from a poetry collection by Tahi Saihate. Mika works as a nurse by day and attends to customers at a bar by night. Shinji is blind in one eye and works in construction. Their paths keep crossing in Tokyo. Rather than constructing a romance, the film sets two people's loneliness side by side. The city is constantly visible: crowds, advertising screens, shops open through the night. The camera shows how invisible two people remain inside that density. The poems enter the film directly; the characters read the texts in voiceover at points and the images change accordingly. That choice moves the film away from straightforward narrative and strikes some viewers as too scattered. Who it's for: those who like Japanese drama built on urban loneliness. Who it's not for: viewers expecting classic romantic narrative; the film is deliberately slow in bringing the relationship together.