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Although he is quite well regarded for his skills in character improvisation, Takuji Kameoka (Yasuda) spends most of his leisure time partially drunk. Because of this, it is no surprise that his agent can assume Kameoka’s inebriated state during phone calls. This has an impact on Kameoka’s career, and considering the life he leads, it is most likely not a positive one. While he may get recognized by strangers from the movies, it is usually “that guy” instead of his actual name.
Everything relies on casting for a role like this, and director Yokohama in “Bare Essence of Life” made a brilliant selection with Yasuda. Yasuda is virtually unknown outside his home country where he works regularly on TV as well as voice acting in Studio Ghibli films, but he possesses personal experience that allows him to match the part perfectly. Additionally, he presumably has just as much to prove as his character. Yasuda also possesses a wonderfully expressive face, the best being the almost incredulous way he finds himself falling for Azumi Murota, the bartender at the remote town he’s shooting in. He can (and does) contort his oddly shaped mouth into a myriad of complex emotions.
The movie suggests that Kameoka is almost out of options and is, therefore, forced to accept what is described as a humiliating stage role. However, in reality, we see him constantly working he appears to be always performing for some director or another in a continuous series of cameos by more prominent Japanese actors. It’s a little muddled of why Kameoka never seems to not be working. In those rare relaxed moments of his life, Kameoka either tries to land a role, such as a soldier in a new epic being directed by a well-known Spanish author (we see him cheekily reenact Venice’s selection, ‘Remo El Cojo’ with Kameoka in the lead), or he drowns himself in booze after a long day of shooting. In one scene, he is paired with a silly young Filipino actress and he orders the use of real alcoholic beverages on set which results in amusing spectacles.
There is, however, a “kink in the chronology” in Yokohama’s script which does concern me, particularly as this script was adapted from a novel by one of Japan’s most revered writers, Akito Inui who has won Japan’s Akitagawa Award five times but is still, in some aspects, a bridesmaid to the prize. The material does not strike one as particularly literary, nor does it have to, and Kameoka’s existential crisis is superbly forgiving its folklorish disco themes reminiscent of an old “Three’s Company” television Theme which is a mind-boggling cocktail of styles. The material does not have to strike one as literary, nor that seems to be the case in the manner in which Kameoka’s existential drama is effortlessly dealt with. Unlike a more desperate grasping actor going to “Leaving Las Vegas”, the sort of outrage which might have been provoked by a more desperate grasping actor is rather statue-like.
Throughout, Yasuda gets plenty of chances to show off his skills, be it in a Spanish movie he was auditioning for or in a replay of a Tarantino-style crime scene, in which he plays one of the main parts and then reenacts it over and over, every time playing a different character. It’s not quite as groundbreaking an amuse bouche as “Holy Motors,” was for Denis Levant, but it’s also much better than the pilot episode Azumi, Aso’s stunning actress who gets one of the more famous declarations of love in his movie. To set the scene, the actor literally takes a page out of disgraced astronaut, Lisa Nowak’s life, and drives across the country in adult diapers (a feat achieved through rear projection) to make his case, which, believe it or not, is completely out of ordinary. But for a movie with the plot I described, Inui and Yokohama’s twist is everything but ordinary, which goes to show that not everything is as it seems.
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