I Like You, I Like You Very Much

Made by the most high-profile of Japan's avant-garde film-makers, this is in the same freewheeling style as Hiroyuki's Oki personal short films: hand-held camerawork, refocusing, reframing and adjustment to the camera aperture. These informal methods are used to tell the committedly everyday story of a relationship between two boys which threatens to break apart when one impulsively cruises a straight guy on the street. Shot in the port city of Kochi, the film offers a panorama of small-town gay lives from quasi-monogamous partnerships to night-groping in the park. Highly credible as an account of a glitch in a relationship, it strikes me as one of the most candid films ever made about the vagaries of male desire, albeit with a deliciously romantic ending.