{"id":83183,"date":"2026-10-16T09:18:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T01:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/?p=83183"},"modified":"2026-10-16T09:18:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T01:18:24","slug":"passion-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/?p=83183","title":{"rendered":"Passion (2008)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ryusuke Hamaguchi wowed the world not long ago with two fantastic releases Drive My Car<\/a><\/em> and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy<\/a><\/em> in the same year. I’ve been on the lookout for his work ever since. Here we go all the way back to his student days as Passion <\/em>was his masters-level graduate work from the Tokyo University of Arts. You can tell that it was made cheaply with a digital camera and I’m not sure that this film goes anywhere in the end, but it’s engrossing throughout and immediately recognizable as the work of an auteur of cinema. It isn’t easy to find as it wasn’t widely distributed but it’s well worth the time of any cinephile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

One evening, a group of friends gather at a restaurant. The older married couple Takeshi and Marie happily announce that they are expecting their first child. Despite the reluctance of her boyfriend Tomoya, schoolteacher Kaho reveals their engagement. After dinner, the women return home, citing the pregnant Marie’s need for rest, but the men continue on with their evening. They head to the home of Takoko, a woman who Kenichiro had helped bury a pet cat earlier. The apartment actually belongs to Takoko’s aunt Hana, a well-known author who arrives to mourn her cat. While the others leave to buy more drinks, Takeshi and Hana are drawn to each other and share a moment but Takeshi breaks it off to stay loyal to his wife. Later while throwing a frisbee on the rooftop, Kenichiro confronts Tomoya over his marriage plans. Kenichiro is openly in love with Kaho and accuses Tomoya of being insincere. The next morning, we see that the women have been loyally waiting for their men to return home. That evening Kenichiro arrives at Takoko’s house uninvited to discover that Tomoya is already there and confesses his love for Takoko. Takeshi arrives too, wanting to reconnect with Hana, and everyone grapples with the fact that each of them is seemingly in love with the wrong person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A popular stereotype holds that Japanese couples are more tolerant of cheating than most other countries. It’s probably untrue or at least true only under very specific circumstances. But whether Hamaguchi intended it or not, this film makes for a rather disturbing example of valuing commitment and stability over momentary passion. Contradictorily, it is also a demonstration of the power of passion. It soon emerges that Takoko has slept with every one of the male friends there but to Tomoya’s frustration, she doesn’t want to be emotionally entangled with any of them. When Takeshi accuses all of them of overthinking things and aggressively assaults Takoko in the bathroom, Tomoya is shocked that she is aroused and responds. At the other end of the spectrum, Kenichiro seeks out Kaho and tells her Tomoya is at Takoko’s house. He spends the whole night regaling her with why she should be with him instead. She is delighted by the attention but in the morning still chooses Tomoya instead. There’s a very bitter lesson here in that even a soul-baring session of brutal honesty among the friends reveals no easy resolution to the vicissitudes of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film is at its best when the characters drop their social veneer of politeness to express their raw emotions. Their argument in an ordinary living room isn’t overly loud but the rawness of what they say is so shocking that it made me apprehensive about the neighbors being disturbed. The scene of Kaho trying to teach her students a lesson about the recent suicide of a classmate feels out of place but it’s another demonstration of the shocking power when someone does an action that is completely out of place under the established rules of a given setting. It’s this quietness, the putting up of an act for social nicety, giving way to unbridled passion, that makes this film so engrossing. This is all the more fascinating to witness in the context of Japanese society that is usually so ordered and restrained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, I don’t think that Hamaguchi has anything deeper to say in this film beyond simply demonstrating this cinematic technique. He seems to recognize that the trope of each person wanting someone other than the one that they can get is somewhat trite and doesn’t allow it to play out fully. It’s a well-made film that doesn’t disappoint but it also feels like an exercise before he gets to work on something more substantial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ryusuke Hamaguchi wowed the world not long ago with two fantastic releases Drive My Car and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy in the same year. I’ve been on the lookout for his work ever since. Here we go all the way back to his student days as Passion was his masters-level graduate work from the … Continue reading Passion (2008)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83183"}],"version-history":[{"count":53,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83281,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83183\/revisions\/83281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}