I Have to Buy New Shoes
                     
Director: Eriko Kitagawa
Year: 2012
Rating: 6.0
I have to move to Paris. Learn to speak French, take up drinking coffee, put garlic on everything and sip Pernod at the local bistro. Whatever Pernod is. Of course, I think this after I watch every film that takes place in Paris. Especially ones like this in which a lot of casual wandering takes place with the Eiffel Tower always looming in the background. And before bed a profiterole from the café on the corner as they ready to close. At home put on a cd of the Yeh-Yeh girl Francoise Hardy and then read a few chapters of a Maigret book. And just maybe I will bump into a lovely lonely Japanese woman who gets drunk and needs to be taken to her spacious apartment on a charming street. It could happen.



This is an intriguing delicate film in which very little happens but it leaves you feeling rather melancholy and alone by the end. It is beautifully shot and feels so crisp and clean that you can practically transport there. It is directed by Eriko Kitagawa who has only directed one other film (Halfway - 2009) but is known for writing some popular TV shows. She definitely has connections because this is produced, edited and photographed by Shunji Iwai. The simple score is composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto (The Last Emperor). Her first film was also produced by Shunji. There is nothing splashy - it simply follows the lives of four people for a few days in which love and longing gets a kick in the pants.



Sen (Osamu Mukai) and his adorable pouty younger sister Suzume (Mirei Kiritani) come to Paris for a short holiday. She has an agenda, he doesn't. Next to the Seine she sneakily gets him out of the taxi, unloads his suitcase and has the driver leave. He doesn't even know the name of his hotel and has his passport trod on and ripped by a passing lady. A Japanese ex-pat in Paris named Aoi played by Miho Nakayam who was in Shunji's Last Letter and Love Letter and is a popular singer as well. She figures out what hotel he is in and directs him - giving us all a nice tour. She has been living in Paris for 5 years working for a Japanese paper. They go out for a drink, she gets drunk and over the film they both confide about their lives which have taken a turn for the worse.



Meanwhile, the sister has dropped in on a man she loves and plopped herself down. He isn't entirely thrilled. Most of the film is taken up by the Aoi-Sen story and as the film proceeds, they open up about their lives. It brings on a sense of fate playing the wrong cards. She is a good ten years older and feeling the void of loneliness crawling up on her. It made me think of Before Sunrise with all the conversations, their attraction to one another and yet lives that go in different directions and you are left wondering why.