Ozu Shapes Mishima Yukiko’s Tokyo Competition Title ‘Two Cigarettes, Three Nights’

Known for her dark relationship dramas, including the 2017 multiple-award-winner “Dear Etranger,” Mishima Yukiko has taken a different approach with her latest film, “Two Cigarettes, Three Nights,” which is in competition at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival.

Based on a 2014 novel by Chihaya Akane, it stars Matsuoka Mayu as Kanna, a picture book illustrator who has tired of her nice-but-boring live-in boyfriend (Inoue Yuki) while having nothing but a physical connection with her cynical married lover (Nakajima Ayumu).

Then a close friend from her college days, Haseo (Narita Ryo), reenters her life after a gap of seven years and once again becomes her confidant. Now a salesman for a drug company and still single, Haseo is something of a womanizer, though he keeps his relationship with Kanna strictly platonic.

Shot in Kyoto, Hiroshima and Toyama Prefecture, the film makes screenwriter Sawai Kaori’s talky script feel visually dynamic, while avoiding cliché shots in Kyoto and Hiroshima, two of Japan’s most famous tourist destinations. Instead of posing against temples and cherry blossoms, the two principals stroll along a riverbank or on railroad tracks as they renew their friendship – and flirt with something more.

“When deciding on a location, it’s not just about picking a ‘pretty’ spot,” says Mishima in an interview at Tokyo Midtown, the main festival site. “Rather it’s more about choosing a place where the scene comes to life.”

“Also, the novel has a lot of scenes set inside a coffee shop, but in the movie (Kanna and Haseo) are walking just about the whole time,” she adds.

Years ago, she and a male friend spent more time walking together than sitting inside a shop and talking, she recalls. “We didn’t talk about our worries and troubles – we’d walk until dawn, just chatting about trivial things.”

“Trivial” is not the word to describe the film’s dialogue, but it has a bantering tone, as well as an unfiltered honesty.

At the same time, Kanna and Haseo don’t face each other right away. “I didn’t want them to do that until a certain point,” says Mishima. “I wanted them to always be looking in the same direction. So when they go into a ramen shop, they are sitting side by side at a counter. The same with buses and trains – they sit next to each other, looking in the same direction.”

A big influence in her shotmaking style, Mishima says, is Ozu Yasujiro, who often filmed characters side by side or even making the same motions in unison. “I love how he captures the way people move within the flow of Japanese life, without cutting the shot, creating a sense of wonder,” she says. “He is also brilliant in how he makes a grand narrative emerge from small, personal moments, so I’ve been greatly influenced by that as well. My film starts from that personal perspective, but then it kind of opens up to the world.”

The film’s first act hints at sex comedy, and Mishima cast both of her leads – Matsuoka (“Tremble All You Want”) and Narita (“Convenience Story”) – with their comic abilities in mind. But she has crafted something more intimate and complex, with an ending open to interpretation.

“I thought that having a good sense for comedy was essential for the long dialogue scenes,” says Mishima. “They require a sense of rhythm and actors with a feel for comedy have it. It makes a huge difference.”

The film is no lighthearted laugh fest: Kanna and Haseo are not always likable characters, acting in ways selfish, callous and even cruel. “I think movies should be able to portray all kinds of people and tell all kinds of stories,” says Mishima. “And it’s good to have characters that represent all kinds of people, too.”

“I think viewers will probably be able to relate to their emotions,” she adds. “They’ll be able to find a part of themselves – ‘Oh, I’ve felt this way too.’ That’s what makes a good actor. No matter how bad the person they’re portraying is, you end up understanding them or rather you can’t help but feel the way they do. That’s their charm.”

Other characters add their perspectives, such as a surly bartender who is close to Haseo and thinks Kanna is hurting him, and Kanna’s jaded college friend who freely admits to cheating on her husband and sympathizes with Kanna’s infidelities. “I wanted to present the story in a multi-layered way,” says Mishima. “The film’s Japanese title is ‘The Male Friend,’ but it gradually drifts away from that theme. It’s more a story about what Kanna comes to see. By spending time with Haseo, she gains a perspective that lets her see not just herself but the world.”

Kanna’s art also changes. In sharp contrast to the commercial hack work that pays her bills, she completes a painting that grows out of her three eventful days with Haseo. “What I want to convey is embedded in that final painting,” says Mishima. “Kanna learns something in Hiroshima about herself and the world and puts that message into her painting. I wanted to depict the whole process, right up to the point where viewers come to see her painting and receive that message.”