Day Seven at the FFM: Thursday, August 31st

My mother, Lily, turned 80 years old today. I hope I'm as healthy as her when I get to her age (hope springs eternal!).

Taiyo no Uta (Midnight Sun). Norihuro Koizumi. Japan. 119 minutes. In Japanese with English subtitles. Xeroderma pigmentosum is a real medical condition that forces the sufferer to avoid any sunlight, as it causes burns, hives, and is eventually fatal. The base cause is a defective ability to repair damaged DNA "broken" by UV exposure. Sixteen year-old Kaoru Amane lives after dark, singing and playing the guitar in the town plaza, watching some boys arrive for surfing each early morning, just before sunrise and her bedtime. She’s never gone to high school, and aside from her supportive, but overly protective parents, has one female friend. She decides to purse Koji, one of the surfer boys she's seen from her window. How can a boy who lives during the day (like, most, but not all of us) have a meaningful relationship with a girl who lives a vampire-like existence? Koji doesn't abandon Kaoru when he finds out about her illness, despite her wanting to hide away and never love anyone. Instead, he wants her to continue to pursue her dream of recording a CD of her songs and music. Will she have time before her body starts to fail? Well, we got suckered into a Japanese teen-age Love Story. Nicely done, but a tad too saccharine, even for the genre, and Japanese films of this type tend to be massively sentimental on a level that seems almost naïve to Western sensibilities. The explanation often given is it’s the flip side to the constant pressure to conform and be stoic. I’m not complaining – really. It’s just…well, the story is a bit too predictable – the only new angle is the sun sensitivity. The singer (who was 19 at the time of filming, playing a 16 yr old girl) did a workable attempt at acting. Kleenex sellers will make a killing at this one.