Oh, what a lovely little film.
I have become far more appreciative these days of simple little films, the kinds of movies which dare to paint their stories on a limited canvas, where good writing is more important than spectacle or frenetic action, or digital wizardry.
And that certainly describes the films written by Makoto Ueda.
Now he first came to my attention with the goofy time travel comedy, Summer Time Machine Blues, although many of you may have encountered him first with his last film, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, a clever little comedy about a TV set which shows what is happening two minutes into the future. And then there’s Magare! Supûn, a very funny movie he wrote between the two, about a journalist investigating reports of paranormal ability who thinks she may have found someone with real ESP abilities.
Not that he hasn’t written many other things (including the anime film, Penguin Highway), but these three films have so much in common: limited settings; an eclectic cast of oddball characters; and the dramatic purity of a stage play.
River has many of these same qualities, although it takes place on a somewhat wider canvas.
Winter has come to a lovely little mountain Inn in Kibune. It sits in a beautiful little valley, with woods, a small shrine, a tiny village and a restaurant across the narrow river from the Inn. A young waitress at the Inn stops for a moment to look at the stream, then goes back to deal with the everyday problems of serving people.
Only to end up at exactly the same spot two minutes later.
Everything repeats just the way it was before, only it all seems far too familiar, like the worst case of déjà vu ever, only she soon learns that she isn’t the only one with this feeling.
And then time loops again.
As they try to understand what is happening, they learn that the whole world hasn’t been affected by the time loops, instead that their little valley is the only place caught in this two minute time loop.
But what it causing it, and, more important, how can they stop it?
It’s all so beautifully thought out and structured. It takes a while for the characters to figure out what’s going wrong. For some it is faster; for others, particularly those who did not change places during those two mintues it takes a while — like the two guests in one room who are shocked that more and more rice keeps appearing in their hot pot, or the waiter listening to his French instructional tapes, who is used to the same phrases being repeated, or the man in the hot spring baths who finally gets tired of being in the water.
However, once they start figuring things out, it all gets complicated because their planning has to take less than two minutes, or everyone has to run back from their starting positions.
Junta Yamaguchi, who directed Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes returns, as does the group of theatrical actors who starred in that film. Once again, they decided to use a very challenging approach to making the film, this time doing each two minute segment in a single take, with a different tone and mood to each, even if they all start out on the river once again.
It can be wild at time, thoughtful at others, with some sections full of people chasing around, others with a moment of quiet talk and even a romance.
It is by turns funny, thoughtful, inventive, and yes, even a bit silly. It is always charming, and as in Ueda’s other complex genre films, all the seemingly unimportant little details do finally get tied together in a deeply satisfying ending which not only explains what’s been happening, but gets everyone together to work on the problem.
And it is a satisfying ending, with those who were trapped in the loop finding ways to work out their problems along the way.
It even has that little hint that maybe there is more to the story than we suspect.
As I said, it is a lovely little film, one which relies on its story and characters and takes on a fantastic adventure, without ever straying very far from the Fujiya inn —
No further than you can reach in two minutes…
rivets on the poster 
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