A Tender Place

On 9 October, my then-five-year-old daughter Yuka disappeared from a resort community near a lake in Hokkaido…’ The opening narration in Nagasaki’s masterful adaptation of a novel by Natsuo Kirino cuts straight to the heart of the matter. Trainee designer Kasumi has married her employer in Tokyo, the manager of a design workshop, and has had a two-year affair with one of his clients. She and her unsuspecting husband are vacationing in Hokkaido with her ex-lover and his wife when Yuka disappears without a trace. Distraught, Kasumi clings to the idea that Yuka is somewhere alive and safe. She returns to the spot every year, hoping to find a clue. Meanwhile her marriage nearly collapses, and her ex-lover’s marriage does collapse. On her fifth visit to Hokkaido, she is shadowed by Utsumi, a detective who has his own ominous reasons for wanting to be involved… The extended running-time allows Nagasaki to reach for a novelistic depth of characterization and a richness of plot. The film dramatizes a number of possible explanations for Yuka’s disappearance before planting the suspicion that we (along with Kasumi and Utsumi) have been looking in the wrong place. —Tony Rayns