THE BEST FILM THAT YOU'LL LIKELY NEVER SEE

It’s called “Glasses”, or Megane in its original Japanese, and it was written and directed by Naoko Ogigami. It was shown briefly in the US, at the Sundance Film Festival on its release in 2007, but is virtually impossible to find today. We saw it at the home of our friends Matt and Nadja, because Matt had managed to get his hands on a copy of a film he had so greatly admired when he first saw it.

            To call the action of "Glasses" minimal is frankly a gross understatement. Perhaps this is the reason for its neglect in the US, where action—the more of it, the better—seems the obsession not merely of the movies but of our lives in general. All the more reason to see a movie where it is reduced to its bare essentials.

            Here’s what “happens”: a woman, Taeko—we never know more about her than that in her other life she is a “professor”—arrives on vacation at the tiny airport of a remote island off the Japanese coast. Like every other character in this enigmatic movie, she is inscrutable. We suspect, we know, that she brings a lot of baggage with her, the emotional baggage made manifest in the large roll-along suitcase to which she appears initially tethered, and which she drags tenaciously behind her even through the soft white sand of the beach.

            It is spring time, a time for rebirth, yet Taeko is seeking disconnection. Escape. From herself, from others. We discover later that she wants to be where there is no cell phone reception. She is dismayed, then, in her polite, understated way, to be offered nothing but connection at the beachside inn at which she is the only guest. At mealtime she is invited to join the politely attentive innkeeper, Yuji; his enigmatic guest Sakura, a woman of uncertain age who projects the quiet, mysterious  authority of a mother hen, or guru; and the pert, somewhat irascible Haruna, a young woman who, we learn, teaches biology at a nearby school where she laments the absence of cute boys in her class.

            Taeko declines the invitation with a bare veneer of civility. But wakes on her first morning to find Sakura kneeling at her bedside, wishing her a good morning with warm concern for her well-being. She is dismissed rather rudely by Taeko, sleepy, and irked by this intrusion. Outside on the beach, though, she finds Sakura leading  a group of local citizens—they appear from nowhere—in a comically balletic exercise class that seems to be an idiosyncratic blend of yoga, tai chi, and modern dance movements. Sakura calls it “merci.” She also operates a shaved ice shack on the beach, where she accepts no payment. Taeko is again aloof, spurning the offer of a treat that is obviously enjoyed by Sakura’s handful of regular customers.

            Asking what sights there are to see, what things to do, Taeko learns that the sole occupation of folks in these parts is “twilighting.” At a loss as to what that might mean, she dithers around for a while before demanding, abruptly, to leave. Her hosts express grave reservations about the alternative local accommodation, the grandly named Marine Palace, but respect her wishes when she insists. Haruna drives her there.

            It’s a long drive, through flat marshlands and dunes. When Taeko arrives—the Marine Palace turns out to be a stark white building that more closely resembles a prison block than a hotel—she is warmly greeted but handed, immediately, a pitchfork and instructed to go to work help the other guests who are laboring in the fields, cultivating food for the hotel’s dining tables. This, she is told, is the “philosophy” of the establishment. Indignant, Taeko grabs the handle of her roll-along suitcase and starts the long trek back to where she came from.

            We follow her for an interminable trek, on foot. She drags her baggage, she tires, she flags, she falters. When she finally comes to a halt, exhausted, who should happen by, ineffably slowly, on a tricycle with a passenger seat behind, but Sakura, as enigmatic as ever? There is room for Taeko on the back seat—but no room for the baggage, which she must now finally, reluctantly, abandon in the middle of this remote country lane. It is, for her, a turning point. From this moment, she begins to learn… to drop all expectations and all needless sense of self, to learn humility, non-attachment, to indulge fully in the exquisite taste of Yuji’s food and Sakura’s shaved ice. She learns that it's possible to accept connection without judgment, to be in touch with the interdependence of all things. She learns, in a word, to “twilight.” By the time she leaves the island, she has found a contentment that surprises her. She smiles. And as the last scene of the movie hints, it will not be long before she’s back.

            I have obviously taken more words to describe it than the action warrants. But that is precisely the point: action is, in its essence, the movement between past and future. It matters little here. Not at all, in fact. What matters is our learning, along with Taeko, to “twilight”—to see without seeing, to do without doing, to be, precisely and exclusively in the what-is of the present moment. What matters is the white of the sand and the turquoise shades of the sea and the soft blue of the sky. What grabs our attention, constantly, and holds it, is the detail of color and shape, texture and movement; the individual sounds of music (it’s delightful!), of sea birds, the wind, and of ripples breaking on the shore. Along with the film’s characters, we enjoy the luscious taste of lobster, feel the warmth of sheets on the bed, of sand between our toes. 

            You will find online references to “Glasses” as a comedy, and you certainly find yourself laughing at the gentle, insistent way it exposes human foibles along the way. But “comedy”? Not exactly. It’s a profound reflection on the way we see the world, the way we experience it—or too often fail to. It takes its title from the curious fact that every one of its characters wears glasses, the very accoutrement of "seeing." Yet every one of them is inscrutable—impossible, in other words, to "see." It's the paradox at the center of this movie--and it's only in learning to live in the paradox that we can "see" what it's about. Twilight is the place where vision becomes moot, the place between day and night, between the conscious and unconscious minds. Where knowing and not-knowing are both suspended in the moment of pure experience, the act of simply being-there.

            It is a sad reflection on our culture that a movie such as this is so easily overlooked and rendered, in fact, virtually unobtainable. I’ve looked to find it online and on streaming television services, but to no avail. So it will likely the remain forever the best film that you’ll never see.