While the cinema schedules in Japan at this time of year are traditionally filled with youth dramas and anime franchise flicks, there’s another, less celebrated seasonal staple: the late-summer drama.
These tend to be intimate, character-driven films with handsome aesthetics, where the sultry atmosphere is offset by an air of melancholy: think Mipo Oh’s “The Light Shines Only There” (2014) or Haruhiko Arai’s “It Feels So Good” (2019). They’re movies that remind us that, in Japan, summer is a season not only for the living, but for the dead.
Bunji Sotoyama taps into this tradition (such as it is) with his second feature, “Soiree.” Working from his own script, the director uses the format of a lovers-on-the-run movie to tell a story of trauma and rebirth, evocatively shot by cinematographer Naoya Ikeda.