The Wandering Moon

On a rainy evening a girl of ten is sitting in a park; she does not want to go home. Fumi, who is twenty, looks after her and takes her home. She stays there two months. Then the police come and Fumi is arrested for abducting a child. The papers write it up and the file closes. Fifteen years later the two meet by chance. She is grown now, and only the two of them know what happened; what everyone else knows is what the papers said. Lee Sang-il directs. The source is Yuu Nagira's novel. The narrative runs in two times and the event is constantly set against the account of it. The film does not show the viewer what happened from the start and the information comes late. The subject is not a crime but a mark: after that report Fumi's life ends entirely; he cannot find work, cannot form a relationship, and his past surfaces in every new place. The woman carries the same mark from the other side; everyone looks at her as a victim and nobody listens to her own account. Lee Sang-il is known in Japan for films treating social matters and has taken up media and prejudice before. Its limit is length; it runs close to two and a half hours and repeats in the middle. Who it is for: viewers who follow Japanese drama and narratives built on prejudice. Who it is not for: the subject is uncomfortable, the narrative deliberately leaves things unclear, and the pace is slow.