The first feature by accomplished short filmmaker Nicole Midori Woodford, poetically entitled Last Shadow at First Light, is a post-apocalyptic story of survivors’ trauma set between Singapore and Japan.
This melancholy ghost story weaves a family’s grievous loss from the 2012 earthquake and tsunami in Japan into the memories of surviving members, particularly the teenage daughter Ami who is the catalyst for reopening old wounds and getting her elders to face up to tragedy. The film’s premiere in San Sebastian’s New Directors section should begin its festival run, where its primary appeal will be to family audiences.
A certain lack of edginess may be attributed to the film being seven years in the making, during which time it passed through multiple project markets that may have filed down the rough bumps in the story a little too well. There aren’t a lot of surprises here or even a lot of drama, and the ghosts are more wistful than scary. Still, the director handles the multiple viewpoints in the story sure-handedly and manages a cast that ranges from first-time actress Mihaya Shirata to accomplished veterans like Jim Jarmusch actor Masatoshi Nagase (Mystery Train, Paterson) and Mariko Tsutsui (Harmonium).
After the flurry of films, both documentaries and fiction features, that followed Japan’s tragic earthquake – most of them centered on the heart-stopping nuclear accident at the Fukushima power plant – Last Shadow at First Light concentrates on the destruction of the town of Tohoku, which was swept away in its entirety, killing more than 18,000 people. But this is far from a disaster movie; instead, it shifts the story to the long-term trauma on those who survived the catastrophe.
Midori Woodford, who also wrote the screenplay, opens the film in modern Singapore where high school student Ami (a tensely determined Mihaya Shirata) is obsessed about finding her mother. When the tsunami hit the family’s hometown in Japan, they were too far away to save the elderly maternal grandparents. Later, Ami’s mother went back to take part in rescue operations and was never heard from again – or was she? Listening to her mother’s voice on an old tape recording, Ami feels her dad has been lying to her and she is still alive.
Finally her father (Peter Yu), looking sad and ineffectual, sends her to her mother’s brother in Tokyo to see for herself. Uncle Isamu (Masatoshi Nagase, excellent in an ever-changing role) picks her up at the airport in his taxi (he drives for a company), but barely has enough interest to glare at her. Back in his messy bachelor apartment, it becomes clear he’s not going to help her look for his missing sister. Like her father, he insists it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie. The question of whether the mother is alive or not continues in scene after scene when the two of them reach Tohoku, much against Uncle’s better judgment. The mother’s state is complicated by the appearance (mainly to Ami, but not only) of family ghosts in the form of the grandparents and Uncle’s dead wife, whose body was never recovered from the ocean.
There is also a young boy of uncertain status, who appears out of nowhere and befriends Ami while Uncle heads for a lonely pachinko parlor to vent his guilt by gambling away the little money in his pocket. Other mysterious events occur: the sky is darkened by clouds of black birds flying in formation, and every so often ribbons of golden light appear, rippling like electrical souls over ocean-facing fields defaced by concrete dikes and ugly highways. Of living people there is barely a trace, which Midori Woodford underlines by keeping them rigorously off-screen.
Cinematographer Hideho Urata (A Land Imagined, Plan 75), who has worked on the director’s short films, foregrounds mystery and atmosphere in the surreally empty landscapes that have transformed the disaster area into an ugly wasteland, the mystically colored skies, and the fact that the ocean is heard but hidden behind a huge wall and barely ever seen. The musical comment by Alenja Pivko Knezevic is strongly evocative but at times feels lacking in subtlety.
Director, screenplay: Nicole Midori Woodford
Cast: Masatoshi Nagase, Mihaya Shirata, Mariko Tsutsui, Peter Yu
Producers: Jeremy Chua, Shozo Ichiyama, Bostjan Virc, Tomohiko Seki
Cinematography: Hideho Urata
Editing: Daniel Hui, Nicole Midori Woodford
Music: Alenja Pivko Knezevic
Sound: Vincent Villa
Production companies: Potocol (Singapore), Fourier Films (Japan), Studio VIrc (Slovenia), Cogito Works (Japan), Happy Infinite Productions (Philippines)
Venue: San Sebastian Film Festival (New Directors)
In English, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese
110 minutes
