March Comes in Like a Lion

Or, perhaps, love among the ruins. In present-day Tokyo, a waste land of tenements prey to decrepitude and demolition, 'Ice' (Yura) decides to collect Haruo (Cho), the young man she's set her heart on, from the hospital where he's being treated for amnesia. A little lie is needed to entice him back to the apartment she's found for them: she tells him she's his lover, neglecting to add that she's also his sister. With no recollections to suggest otherwise, he goes along with her - but how long before his memory returns? With its long, static, carefully composed takes, taciturn script and tantalisingly ambivalent tone, Yazaki's beautifully matter-of-fact study of incestuous longing is an engrossing, sexy and remarkably tender movie. Crucially, it eschews both easy judgments and fake sentimentality; indeed, there's a droll, deadpan humour at work, most noticeably in the frequent sight gags. At the same time, however, the evocative use of metaphors ensures that the general air of detachment makes not for a dry, academic exercise, but a poetic tale of a fragile, blossoming romance that's finally both subtly subversive and, thanks to the charismatic central performances, deeply affecting.