DEAR DOCTOR (Japan, 2009)
Directed by: Miwa Nishikawa
Starring: Tsurube Shofukutei, Eita, Kaoru Yachigusa, Kimiko Yo, Teruyuki Kagawa, Ryo Iwamatsu

A distant figure waving from across a windswept field, a white lab coat lying on the side of the road, pockets of air hissing through punctures in a suffocating man's chest - these cryptic images are the scattered pieces of a puzzle, components of a cipher for cracking the cruelly blase' code at the heart of DEAR DOCTOR, a sun-drenched, blues-tinged anti-mystery about necessary systems and everyday self-deceptions.  Deep in the drowsy summers of remote Kamiwada Village, kindly Dr. Ino (Tsurube Shofukutei) has disappeared without a trace, leaving behind a taciturn staff, a traumatized populace, and no shortage of difficult questions.  Without Ino to minister to the village's one hundred and one geriatrics, the very equilibrium of lazy, forgotten Kamiwada threatens to collapse.  "The doctor is God!" one distraught pensioner cries, and in this situation he's not far off.  But how well do any of us really know God, anyway?  Has anyone checked his references?

Winner of 21 major Japanese film awards, the latest from Miwa Nishikawa (SWAY), DEAR DOCTOR has been roaming the festival circuit like a charmed vagabond ever since, winning Best Film at the Yokohama Film Festival before heading west.  Comparisons to last year's DEPARTURES have been everywhere, but DOCTOR is more twisted by far. 

Beloved funnyman Tsurube Shofukutei turns in a devastating performance as trusty Dr. Ino, the benignly befuddled, contradictory doctor floating at the center of a community left to fend for itself.  He's backed up by a "who's who" of Japanese cinema, including heart-rending turns from Kimiko Yo (DEPARTURES) as his steely nurse/confessor and legendary character actress Kaoru Yachigusa (SAMURAI ASSASSIN) as Ino's number one patient in need, with heartthrob Eita (MEMORIES OF MATSUKO) as DEAR DOCTOR's disaffected hipster protege, and no less than NYAFF icon Teruyuki Kagawa (THE MAGIC HOUR) as a hard-drinking pharmaceutical rep.

The secret of Kamiwada Village is that there is no secret - no one tells, because no one ever asks.  DEAR DOCTOR is less a character drama than a sociological study, a look under harsh natural light at a subset of society misplaced by the public health system, where language collapses into subjective inference and morality into individual necessity, fueling the uniquely biased interpretations of human interaction we all need to get by.  When a hand instinctively reaches out for help, who among us wouldn't take it?  As Nishikawa's clinical lens roves with the mercilessness of a surveillance camera, scraping away scalpel-like at untold depths of hidden emotion cloaked in the flicker of a biased eye, the core of DEAR DOCTOR is revealed to be a blisteringly banal riddle hiding in plain sight.

Presented in association with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film (July 1 - 16, 2010)