Ishikawa Hiroshi For The Unhappy

Miyazaki Aoi and Kutsuna Shiori in Petal Dance

  Boy, Japanese Director Hiroshi Ishikawa SURE likes making these grey, morose, meandering movies, doesn’t he? Those of you who have seen his 2002 Yuka Itaya flick “Tokyo Sora” or 2005 Aoi Miyazaki film “Su-Ki-Da” will know what I mean, and as soon as I began watching his 2013 movie Petal Dance and saw the film was shot through that familiar cold blue filter, I knew I was in for a movie that was more about people staring wistfully into space than any intriguing plot. “Oh No!” was my first reaction, “Please don’t let it be Su-Ki-Da all over again!"

Kutsuna Shiori as Haraki

Since the movie opened with star Aoi Miyazaki, I was already getting the Su-Ki-Da deja-vu, but fortunately, the movie was centered around upcoming actress Kutsuna Shiori, and though the movie WAS as slow-paced and meandering as I’d predicted, she gave the film just enough “umph” to keep me interested throughout, and in the end I have to say I rather enjoyed it!!

Miyazaki Aoi, Sakura Ando,Kutsuna Shiori, Fukiishi Kazue

“Petal Dance” concerns Shiori as a girl named Haraki who is worried that a friend has commited suicide. The last time she talked to her, she got the feeling that something dark was on her mind, and after saying a listless goodbye, she never saw her again.  This friend had once told her wishes come true when wished upon an object being carried by the breeze, and so lately Haraki has been praying to the wind that she’ll see her friend again, happy and smiling.

This theme of the Wind as an inspirational source as well as the theme of desperation and suicide are carried throughout the movie as Haraki meets up with Jinko (Aoi Miyazaki) and Motoko(Sakura Ando) who are taking a cross-country trip to visit a friend named Miki (Fukiishi Kazue) who may or may not have purposely jumped into the ocean and is now resting at a hospital.

So yeah, lots of soul-searching and winsome staring into the abyss, but all very beautifully captured on film, every scene is so pretty to look at, the slate greys and cobalt blues of the sleet, snow, sand and asphalt as the four girls drive the countryside really giving you a introspective feeling. So despite its hovering gloomy aura, in the end I came away from the film strangely satisfied…though now can't shake the feeling of loneliness, LOL!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com