Love Addiction

The film was made for the price of a second-hand car. So now anyone can make a film? On the contrary. If all you have is a videocamera and four actors playing out their relationships, that’s when talent really emerges. Certainly the actors’.

In his second feature, Nobuteru Uchida asks a lot of his four actors. They are left to their fierce emotions, with not much narrative to cling on to – it’s as if they have been left alone with each other and the camera. The characters all work for the same company, but we follow them outside working hours, in their small apartments, on their way to work or in the corridors of the metro.

Yukako has a relationship with her colleague Shigehisa. There are tensions in the relationship and Yukako suspects Shigehisa of having another relationship. This makes Yukako confused and unstable. One day she faints in a metro station. She is helped by Noboru, another colleague. Noboru is infatuated with the new temp Saeko, but she does not reciprocate his feelings. Saeko is in fact the secret love of Shigehisa.

The story seems like it could be a soap opera or even a comedy, but the acting and staging look so realistic that we could be witnessing heated therapy sessions. According to the filmmaker, love is not always something beautiful or even something you have under control. Personalities and situations are too different to find a harmonious solution. That doesn’t mean that people give up their attempts to love, because it is indeed addictive. –Rotterdam