Following the explosive violence of “destruction babies”, Japanese filmmaker Mariko Tetsuya pivoted to explore another type of devastation in “Dear Stranger” – the silent collapse of a marriage under the weight of cultural truths and travel.
The tragedy, which had its international international at the Busan International Film Festival, features Nishijima Hidetoshi (“Drive My Car”, Oscarisse) and Gwei Lun-Mei (“Black Coal, Thin Ice”). In the context of New York, the film follows Kenji (Nishijima), a Japanese professor who is desperately looking for the mandate, and Jane (Gwei), a Taiwanese-American puppeteer who fights to balance maternity with his artistic identity. When their young son Kai disappears, the carefully constructed life of the couple begins to collapse.
For Mariko, whose previous work “destruction babies” earned him the golden leopard of the best director emerging in Locarno, the transition to emotional violence rather than physical was triggered by his return to Japan during the pandemic. “The starting point was on the plane back in Japan after a year to live in the United States, when a national emergency state was declared,” said Mariko. “The world has suddenly changed and was engulfed in uncertainty, and I started thinking about the family – the smallest unit in society.”
The director deliberately moved away from the “absurd violence” of his previous work to focus on “the tragedy of separating precisely because they care about each other”.
The motif of the ruins, both literal and metaphorical. Kenji gives conferences on the difference between the Japanese static views of the ruins compared to Western dynamic interpretations and bears the memory of past earthquakes. “For Kenji, who studies the ruins, the collapse of his own ruined family marked both a beautiful and ephemeral beginning,” notes Mariko. “I defined this as the backbone of the script and I built the themes of history around him.”
The metaphor of ruins extends to the performance of Jane’s puppets in abandoned theaters, where puppets larger than life become extensions of its deleted emotions. By working with Blair Thomas, Mariko developed a choreography that allowed the puppet to serve as an emotional exit from Jane. “For the character of Jane, it was essential to show both his passion for the puppet and his conflict in balancing it with family life,” said the director.
The film represents a real international co-production between Japan, Taiwan and the United States, with the shooting in New York, the edition in Taiwan and a distribution and a multinational crew. For Mariko, experience has strengthened the power of cinema as a universal language. “I approached cinema with this ambiguity in mind,” he says concerning the challenges of multilingual communication. “Since staff and casting came from different languages and cultures, our continuing communication is naturally reflected in the film itself.”
Nishijima brings his characteristic intensity to Kenji, a man whose academic arrogance masks deep insecurity and despair. “I wanted to portray Kenji as someone who does his best to live although Imperfect – a character who reflects most of us,” explains the actor. Nishijima, who has built a career covering Japanese and international productions of “Drive My Car” in “Sunny” from Apple TV +, filmed in New York with a small distribution and a multinational crew.
“Thanks to this experience, I was reminded that the film itself is a kind of universal language, and when everyone shares a strong passion to create something significant, it can take shape in a way that does not compose on the language,” he recalls.
Gwei Lun-Mei offers just as nuanced performance as Jane, a woman taken between her artistic ambitions and maternal responsibilities. The Taiwanese actor, who worked in several film industries, has found a special resonance in Jane’s struggle with cultural movement. “Having studied abroad myself, I felt that the installation really and recognition by the people of another culture is very difficult,” she says.
The puppet sequences have become crucial to express Jane’s inner life. “The puppet scenes were extremely important for Jane. On the one hand, they represented his passion; On the other, they were like another soul, ”explains Gwei.
Basically, “dear stranger” questions the nature of love itself – in particular the gap between feeling and expression, intention and understanding. For Mariko, the question was triggered by the evaluation of photographer Masafumi Sanai according to which he had “no affection, but passing love” when they worked together on “from Miyamoto to you”.
“For me, love exists in cinema,” explains Mariko. “It is not an easily understandable emotion – it accumulates quietly and surely, through countless human connections. It comes so naturally from the passion that it seems almost embarrassing to put into words, but it is also fragile, as if it could disappear if it was unknown.”
