A few personal items lost at a rural train station provide the links to connect a variety of characters that might not otherwise realize the other exists in this poetic Japanese import from writer/director Nobuyuki Miyake. Achingly sad, yet astonishingly lovely, Miyake’s tender film features many lithe performances that could have easily devolved into intransigent melancholy. Instead, the gentle pacing, the natural light, the clean images, the austere colors make you sink into every moment of this film. No image, no glance, and no movement is superfluous. Even a constantly simmering teapot kept by an aging officer at the lost and found office manages to swell with meaning and provides a centering image for the viewer to return to. If there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s not the singsong adage that a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met, but that the singularly human experience echoes through everyone in a thousand different ways.
Lost and Found screens on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 7pm, at the Arbor.
This article appears in October 17 • 2008.