I reviewed one of my favorite films of recent years, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s HAPPY HOUR, for Cine-File Chicago. It screens at the Ambassador Hotel for FREE this Sunday as part of the invaluable Asian Pop-Up Cinema series:

Ryusuke Hamaguhi’s HAPPY HOUR (Japanese Revival)

Asian Pop-Up Cinema at the Ambassador Hotel — Screening Room (1301 N. State Parkway) – Sunday at 1pm (Free Admission*)

One of the most important cinematic discoveries of recent years for me was seeing Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 5-hour-and-17-minute Japanese masterpiece for the first time. It tells the story of four 37-year-old female friends living in Kobe who are given occasion to re-evaluate their personal and professional lives after they spend the night together at a spa/hot-spring resort in a town nearby (think GIRLS TRIP as directed by Yasujiro Ozu). This quiet, absorbing dramedy is written, directed and acted to perfection and its moment-to-moment narrative unpredictability belies a rigorous structural ingenuity, which only becomes obvious in hindsight: a lengthy scene depicting a workshop attended by the four protagonists about “unconventional communication” takes up much of the film’s first third. This sequence, reminiscent of the rehearsal scenes in Jacques Rivette’s OUT 1, not only foreshadows much of the drama that is to follow but also is elegantly mirrored by another lengthy scene involving an author talk/question-and-answer session in the film’s final third. The quartet of lead actresses (Rira Kawamura, Hazuki Kikuchi, Maiko Mihara and Sachie Tanaka) deservedly shared the Best Actress award at Locarno, and in spite of the lengthy run time, I feel like I could have watched these women’s lives unfold onscreen indefinitely. (2015, 317 min, Digital Projection) MGS