Directors have various ways of communicating in interviews — beyond the usual talking points, that is. Koji Fukada drew me geometrical diagrams to explain the intertwining relationships in his coming-of-age drama "Hotori no Sakuko (Au Revoir l'Ete)." Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki sketched me Ghibli-esque cartoons with a suprising fluency as he discussed the gestation of a new Hayao Miyazaki film. But Ayumi Sakamoto, director of the so-called female-frenemy drama "Forma," is the only one I've met who shapes the air with her hands as she talks, conjuring up images of a sculptor working with unusually pliable clay. A sculptor, I should add, with precise ideas about her art and articulate ways of expressing them.
That precision is important. "Forma" is Sakamoto's first feature after working on the crew of veteran indie director Shinya Tsukamoto, and it starts slowly and minimally, with long cuts and no explanatory narration or music. Watching the enigmatic first scene, in which a woman walks around an office with a cardboard box over her head, I wondered if I would make it through the film's 145-minute running time.
But when this box-wearing office worker, Ayako (Nagisa Umeno), reconnects with a long-lost high school classmate, Yukari (Emiko Matsuoka), an uneasy tension develops and steadily builds as their pretense of friendship devolves into suspicion and enmity. The tension climaxes in a gripping 24-minute cut.