There are certain words that come up a lot in reviews of the work of Koji Fukada: ambiguous, enigmatic, frustrating. As a filmmaker, he couldn¡¯t be accused of taking the easy option; this is a guy who thinks nothing of casting an honest-to-God android in a lead role (see 2015¡¯s ¡°³§²¹²â´Ç²Ô²¹°ù²¹¡±), or making a four-hour deconstructed rom-com (2020¡¯s ¡°The Real Thing¡±).
Even at their most straightforward, Fukada¡¯s films are full of narrative detours and dead ends, with a tone that can veer suddenly from naturalistic drama into broad comedy or theatrical artifice. There¡¯s been a point in most of them where I¡¯ve sat back and thought, ¡°OK, where are you going with all this?¡±
It happened more than once during ¡°Love Life,¡± which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival earlier this week. While not quite as confounding as 2019¡¯s ¡°A Girl Missing,¡± it¡¯s a muted and elusive piece of work that takes a roundabout route to reach its (actually quite resonant) conclusion.
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