Sho Miyake has emerged as one of the most original voices in contemporary Japanese cinema. His work, consistently praised both domestically and internationally, has cemented his status as a filmmaker who can weave together intimate, personal stories with broader meditations on culture and memory. His latest film, Two Seasons, Two Strangers further demonstrates his command of lyrical, poetic storytelling.
Drawing inspiration from two manga stories by Yoshiharu Tsuge, Mr. Ben and His Igloo and A View of the Seaside, Miyake fuses them into a single, layered narrative. At its core is Li, a Korean screenwriter residing in Japan, who struggles with a crippling creative block.
Her voice leads the viewer into the first film-within-a-film”: a summer story of Nagisa and Natsuo, a lonely man she encounters on a sunlit beach. Their conversations are sparse, their gestures minimal, yet the atmosphere resonates with unspoken intimacy. They swim in the chilly sea, share seaweed desserts, and stroll aimlessly by the shore – images that recall the languid, sunlit simplicity of Éric Rohmer’s summery dramas, though filtered through a distinctly Japanese sensibility, more contemplative and melancholic.
About 40 minutes into the film, Li presents her script together with the director at a university. A strict professor comments that the movie feels charged with hidden eroticism. The directorexplains that the idea first came to him when he left his hometown for the very first time. At this point, it becomes clear that the theme of travel – as both escape and self-discovery – lies at the core of the creation. Li, immersed in her writing, begins to feel that the words inside her head have turned into a cage. And so, travel appears as the only way to break free from that trap.
The narrative then shifts into winter. Li, still consumed by her creative struggle, embarks on her own journey, traveling to a distant town where she stays in a crumbling, remote inn. There she meets its enigmatic owner, a stranger whose quiet presence brings her face-to-face with solitude, possibility, and the fragile hope of transformation.
Visually, the film is nothing short of dazzling. Cinematographer Yuta Tsukinaga embraces long takes, allowing the audience to sink into the rhythm of both the landscapes and the silence between characters. The camera lingers on empty corridors, windswept coastlines, and shadowed rooms, capturing both the physical space and the invisible emotions that fill them. The decision to shoot extended sequences in near-darkness creates a striking intimacy – faces half-lit, gestures barely perceptible, the glow of a single lamp or streetlight carving out islands of warmth in surrounding obscurity. These choices do not merely aestheticise the story, but become integral to the film’s exploration of memory, absence, and the elusive search for connection.
Equally memorable is the way the Japanese landscapes are rendered on screen. The seaside sequences shimmer with green colours, evoking both nostalgia and transience, while the winter chapters unfold against bare trees, snow-muted streets, and the desolate beauty of provincial towns. The characters seem to dissolve into these landscapes, their inner states reflected in the moderate, deliberate tempo of the narrative. Nothing is hurried, nothing is forced: each pause, each breath, each stretch of silence feels attuned to the natural rhythm of the world around them.
Miyake shapes Two Seasons, Two Strangers in the tradition of slow Japanese cinema, reminiscent of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s restrained, deeply human storytelling. While Hamaguchi’s films are often marked by ambitious scope and a more solemn, sometimes somber tone, Miyake’s work feels far more intimate in scale – lighter, gentler, and suffused with a quiet delicateness. It is a meditation on movement and stasis, on words that trap us and journeys that release us.
Winning the Golden Leopard at the 78th Locarno Film Festival, the film stands as a testament to Miyake’s ability to turn the smallest gestures into profound cinematic moments. Two Seasons, Two Strangers is not only a celebration of Tsuge’s literary legacy but also a luminous exploration of human connection across time, seasons, and silences. Also showing at the 5th Red Sea International Film Festival.
