Two Seasons, Two Strangers

Based on two mangas by Yoshiharu Tsuge, who rose to underground celebrity thanks to his surrealist tales published in the pages of the bastion of Japanese avant-garde cartooning, Garo, Miyake’s bifurcated live-action feature observes (and draws parallels and contrasts from) a summertime meet-cute between Nagisa and Natsuo (Yuumi Kawai and Mansaku Takada) and a snowbound winter encounter between screenwriter Li and innkeeper Benzo (Shim Eun-kyung and Shinichi Tsutsumi). Winner of the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival, Two Seasons, Two Strangers is at one and the same time as simple as its straightforward title suggests and immensely, exhilaratingly complex.