Written by Michael Clawson
90/100
No matter what she’s asked to do, be it to suffer on a janky amusement park ride that’s more like a torture device or eat an under-cooked plate of food, Yoko has a peppy, exuberant personality so long as the camera is rolling. Behind the scenes though, she’s anxious and fretful. As the host of a Japanese reality travel show currently on assignment in Uzbekistan, Yoko and her small all-male crew often attract the attention of on-lookers as they meander around the country documenting cultural customs and sites, but Yoko (Atsuka Maeda, so wonderful) is too nervous to even make eye contact with the locals, let alone actually engage with them. The fact that she can’t say more than a word or two in the local language doesn’t help.
In crafting in this delightfully strange character study, Kurosawa moves between tonal registers with the same ease as that with which Yoko turns her bubbly persona on and off for the camera. Offbeat comedy mingles with nerve-wracking tension and suspense as we follow Yoko’s winding, unusual path towards something like self-actualization, or at least a newfound self-confidence. Yoko is a young woman with a fear of the unfamiliar, but even more than that, she’s afraid of feeling trapped. Rather than straightforwardly dissect Yoko’s psychology, however, Kurosawa takes a thrillingly unconventional approach to character, stringing together moments that follow one another unpredictably and reveal only partial, incremental insight into Yoko’s desires and insecurities. It makes her an impossibly alluring character, and Maeda delivers an immensely charming performance. Rather than TV reporting, Yoko’s true dream, we learn, is to be a singer. That detail allows for two slightly surreal musical moments that are as rapturous as they are unexpected.
Recommended
To the Ends of the Earth Trailer
To the Ends of the Earth is currently available to watch through select Virtual Cinema Venues
