Two Seasons, Two Strangers

Sho Miyake's 2025 Japanese film sets two stories side by side, in two seasons and two places. In summer Nagisa and Natsuo meet by the sea; in winter Li, a screenwriter, travels to a snow-covered village and meets Benzo, who runs a guesthouse there. The link between the halves is not made through an explicit plot. The film watches how similar feelings look in different climates; heat and cold, wet and dry are the main material setting the emotional register of the scenes. Miyake is a director who works with silence and duration; scenes run long, nothing is explained and the viewer is expected to fill the gap. Shim Eun-kyung and Shinichi Tsutsumi are in the cast. Who it's for: those who like slow contemporary Japanese cinema. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a clear narrative connection; the two stories are not joined at the level of events.