Ramblers

Two youngish actors who don't know or much like each other arrive by the same train in a coastal spa town, expecting to meet a director to workshop a film project. But the director is delayed, and the two men have no choice but to hang out together while they wait. They eat and try the hot springs, wander around, go fishing - and spend the nights in ever-cheaper lodgings as their cash runs out. Things perk up when they run into the sparky and likeable Atsuko and start travelling with her; but she suddenly disappears. This is Yamashita's first film for a mini-major and first non-original screenplay (it's based on a manga by Yoshiharu Tsuge), but it's remarkably consonant with Hazy Life and No One's Ark. It catches the slacker mentality with absolute precision, as well as the awkwardness between strangers thrown together, the hostility of locals to 'tourists' and the fleeting sense that things might get better. Droll, to say the least, and not a moment too long.