Nagi Notes

There’s been a recent upsurge of the interest in Japan, as both location and metaphor, in Indian cinema. The romantic leads in both Toh Ti Ani Fuji ( Marathi) and Ek Din (Hindi), wander around Japanese hills and vales, looking for themselves. The four central characters in Koji Fukada’s latest Nagi Notes (his first in Cannes Competition) are also searching, and their quest turns into a ruminative marvel, which sneaks into your heart without fanfare. Two women, co-sisters-in-law in spirit even when the man in question has vanished from their lives, reunite for a week in Nagi, the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone else, public service announcements on radio talking about mundane civic affairs (as well as the war in faraway Ukraine) become the chief source of information, and where the rhythms of nature reflect the inner turmoil of the characters.