Threads - Our Tapestry of Love

Takahisa Zeze's 2020 Japanese film tells the story of Ren and Aoi, both born in 1989, from the age of thirteen to thirty-one. They become each other's first love, part, meet again years later and part again; the film runs the whole Heisei era through these two lives. What makes the story interesting is not that it delays their reunion but that it gives both characters existence independent of each other: Aoi's violent marriage and the blockage in Ren's working life are told in their own right. The period's ruptures, the earthquake and the economic crisis, enter the story directly. It runs long and the tidying in the final section is too neat. Who it's for: viewers who like Japanese melodrama and love stories spread across long spans of time. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a short narrative, or avoiding content involving domestic violence.