Compared to his avant-garde French new-wave peers, Eric Rohmer seemed to direct in a lighter, more conventional key: All those casually chic young heroines photographed in the more attractive parts of France, all those stories about their various love troubles. Also, from a Hollywood perspective, his characters talk too much and his stories ramble too long. But for fans, including me, his films adroitly reveal, rather than bluntly expose, the complexities and perversities of the human animal. Those long, naturalistic conversations turn out to have a deeper purpose than displaying the charms of the characters.
Rohmer disciple Koji Fukada pays homage to the master in his summer-at-the-beach drama "Hotori no Sakuko (Au Revoir l'Eté)," right down to a French title that references Rohmer's 1996 film "Conte d'Eté (A Summer's Tale)."
And yet this film, winner of the best film prize at the Nantes Three Continents Festival and the best director award at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, is hardly a cut-and-paste job. Scripted by Fukada himself, it feels believably Japanese enough, though its characters are the thin slice of folks here who can take longish summer vacations — including the title heroine, Sakuko (Fumi Nikaido), who has failed her university entrance exams and is girding for another try, and her aunt Mikie (Mayu Tsuruta), a university professor who is house-sitting for her sister (Makiko Watanabe) at a seaside town.