QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM CANNES

This is a movie about figure-skating. The high jumps, the squats, the practice, the ambition, and the love. What Japanese filmmaker Hiroshi Okuyama exhibits in this fine tribute to ice sports is the love for the discipline, a passion that is often derailed by human error. He unites three solitary characters: Takuya (Keitatsu Koshiyama), mocked by his peers for a stammer; there’s Arakawa (Sosuke Ikematsu), a coach who has retired to the rural hinterlands; and then there’s Sakura (Kiara Nakanishi), a prodigy in the rink, her body poised like a ballerina mid song.

The three perform to the gentle strokes of Debussy’s elegant Claire de Lune, the piano bouncing off the shuffles and scratches spread across the floor. Caught in an almost adolescent flutter, the trinity face an external challenge that threatens to break up their band: parents.What begins as a tribute to figure skating swiftly changes into something more complex and sophisticated, challenging Japanese cultural norms on masculinity, fragility and homosexuality.

Arakawa struggles to adjust to the simplicity in the town he has adopted for himself, parading his domicile with literature, pamphlets and magazines; remnants of a past life that was compromised for love. Takuya, who battles to make something of himself as a hockey player, recognises the beauty within the white rank, captivated by Sakura’s grace and choreography. Together, the two males decide to compete in a sport which harnesses the inner core muscle: brain over brawn, presence over progress. Arakawa congratulates Sakura on her efforts, but in her heart of hearts, she senses a distance between them: is Takuya Arakawa’s favourite student?

Much of the film plays like a music video, most notably during one jolly medley, soundtracked by Colin Blunstone’s dulcet delivery of Goin’ Out My Head. It’s like watching a montage from a Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976) flick, although the pecks and raw eggs have been replaced by impish smiles and silhouettes pirouetting in the sunlight. Many of the influences – soft-focus camera work, pop ballads, rapid-fire cuts during the work-out sessions – are decidedly steeped in a Hollywood gleam, but at its heart, this is a story about a Japanese trio, reconciling their chosen sport against the traditions that have upheld their town for generations.

Takuya’s hockey buddies jeer and mock him as he prepares for an upcoming dance (The Dutch Waltz), concurrent to the questions Sakura receives about the hobby’s value from her curious, and wealthy, mother. Arakawa is surprisingly opaque about his personal life, in a countryside governed by family values. Okuyama conjures an interesting circle: Takuya feels an affection for Sakura, one she may hold for her teacher. This all comes to a head when she sees Takuya rehearsing with the instructor: their body language a mixture of preparation and position over her more fleet-footed form of skating.Measured against Okuyama’s debut Jesus (2018), this is a more commercial offering from the writer behind the camera, and some of the undercurrents are a little faux-naïf in their demonstration (Arakawa suggests that they prepare for a competition, but the movie doesn’t return to the idea).

Okuyama out-does himself during one particular skating number, positioning Takuya and Sakura metres from the camera, their hands etched over the twirls and traverses; one single unit operated by a partnership. Building on the toe-dances and tangos that appear on the screen, the creative team ramps up the atmosphere with lingering close-ups of the three athletes caught in their truths and thoughts. It comes as a welcome change, particularly for the younger actors, who can communicate more honestly through stoic expressions and smiles. Humans skate, effervesce and evolve, but pauses are important too.

My Sunshine just premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 77th Cannes International Film Festival.