Review | Film review: A Bride for Rip Van Winkle – Shunji Iwai returns in fine form
Director best known for Love Letter is back after a long hiatus from feature film-making with a tale of relationships and morals
In Washington Irving’s 1819 short story, the character Rip Van Winkle is a well-loved villager who wanders off into the mountains and returns the next morning, only to find that 20 years – and the American revolutionary war – have passed him by. It would seem revered Japanese writer-director Shunji Iwai has taken a leaf out of Rip Van Winkle’s book.
After establishing himself as one of his home country’s top filmmakers with such contemporary gems as Love Letter, Swallowtail Butterfly and Hana and Alice, Iwai had gone on a 12-year sabbatical from live-action feature filmmaking in Japan until he directed A Bride for Rip Van Winkle, partly as a response to the 3/11 tsunami. The three-hour roller coaster of emotions marks a welcome return to form.
READ MORE: Love Letter director Shunji Iwai on his long road back to feature-film making
A convoluted tale of capricious human relationships and questionable moral conduct, the film is anchored by the unassuming charisma of Haru Kuroki, winner of the Silver Bear award for best actress at the 2014 Berlin Film Festival for her part in Yoji Yamada’s The Little House. Kuroki plays Nanami, a gullible young woman who can’t quite believe her fortune when she finds a decent husband on social media.
Although the film largely derives its narrative momentum from Amuro’s multiple acts of fraud, credit is due to Iwai in that his story barely acknowledges Nanami’s probable sense of disillusionment, instead arriving at an unlikely state of bliss for its hopelessly romantic characters. It takes a considerably sophisticated filmmaker to find genuine rapport amid false fronts and elaborate role-playing.
A Bride for Rip Van Winkle opens on March 17
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