Introduction

Every year, new directors present their first feature film to the world. In such a competitive field, one needs, of course, find a way to stand out, either by offering a refreshing narrative experience to the spectator or by charming the spectator’s scopic drive with one’s sense of composition and style.

This year, Tetsuya Chihara takes his chance to try to impress audiences with a film based on Ice Cream Netsu, a short story written by the world-famous Mieko Kawakami. Yet, the association with such a famous writer, of course, raises expectations. So, can he, by showing off his talent, fulfill them?   

Review

One day, struggling novelist Saho Hashimoto (Serena Motola) wanders into a small ice-cream shop called Shibuya Million Ice Cream. Not long after she leaves, Natsumi Tokita (Aiho Yoshioka) dashes out of the shop to give her a stamp card, leaving her co-worker Takako Kuwashima (Utaha) behind.

Before the opening hours of public bath Kosugiyu, Yuu (Marika Matsumoto) enters the premises to help out Harue (-) and Mari (-). Yet, when she starts putting some drinks into the fridge, Harue complains that she never buys a drink. Yu replies that she always restrains herself because the sight of Fujisan makes her crave for ice-cream. Later that day, when returning to her apartment from the public bath, she finds her niece Miwa (-) standing in front of her door. She has come to Tokyo to find her father.

Ice Cream Fever offers a stylish exploration of the mundane struggles that arise within the field structured by the two different but often interlocking dimensions of love and desire. The refined nature by which this fragmented tale of inner struggles, this slice-of-life drama, unfolds is caused by one simple reoccurring visual marker. This well-placed visual element is not simply a motive within Ice Cream Fever, but a veritable signifier that, by temporally ordering the various narrative strands and signifiers, give rise to an unvocalized signified. In other words, the reoccurrence of this visual element enables the visuals, acting as signifiers, to elegantly stage the conclusion of the various intertwining subjective trajectories.

Each of the main characters within the narrative is marked by inhibitions and anxiety at the level of their ego. Natsumi, who now works at an ice-cream parlour, saw her dream of becoming a designer ravaged by the harsh work-culture. Yet, while this traumatic passage inhibited her will to actively pursue her creative desire, it did not squash it. The remainder of her desire is expressed in the lingering doubt concerning job at the ice-cream parlour as well as in her inability to stop doodling.

Then, one day, Natsumi suddenly feel attracted by the sliver of anger that lingers in Saho’s eyes and her stoic presence. This scopic encounter with this phallic shine compels her to seek her out and force an amical relationship with her. Yet, how will Natsumi’s acts impact Saho’s subjective position? Will the sudden presence of Natsumi in her subjective space breathe, once more, emotion within her? Will it crack her stoic presence, erase the facial sign of her lack of desire and undo her writer’s block, the inhibition she experiences at the level of her writing?

On the other hand, Miwa’s sudden wish to find her father is instigated by a poetic and fatalistic sense that nuclear weapons can, at any minute, erase all human life, evaporate all love, and turn the world into a wasteland. The same sense of poetry – a fleeting reference to Osamu Dasai is made – is felt in the way Miwa thinks about the possible encounter with her father. Rather than meeting him with a fixed aim, she wants the outcome of the encounter to be decided by the path the exchanged signifiers carve out. In other words, she refuses to close off the myriad of relational effects said encounter can have and offers herself and the fate of the encounter to the flow of the signifier.  

Of course, this way of thinking clashes with the more down-to-earth and calculated way of thinking that structures her aunt Yuu. Yet, through her signifiers of reason, one can discern that she wants to avoid her niece from meeting her father and that she is, herself, conflicted about meeting him – Yuu’s inhibition is, thus, relational. This stance, carefully hidden behind her facade of reason, is determined by the ravaging event of losing her lover to her sister (Narra-note 1).  Yet, before Yuu can even deal with her sister’s daughter and her desire, another event disturbs her peaceful equilibrium: the sudden closure of her beloved public bath (Narra-note 2).

The composition of Ice Cream Fever fluidly combines documentary-style dynamism with elegant stylistic surges. It is not merely that Tetsuya Chihara seeks to deliver compositional elegance through the shaky dynamism, but that his stylistic choices (e.g. the square aspect ratio, the shift from monochrome to polychrome colours, the play with depth-of-field, … etc. ), his use of visual decorations (e.g. slow-motion, stop-motion-like effects, … etc.) and the way he composes many shots primarily aim to heighten the visual pleasure of the composition as a whole and to give it a snap-shot-like feel. 

Moreover, Chihara’s desire to offer visual pleasure and stylistic elegance is also evident in his use of sounds (i.e. use of non-diegetic speech) and the peculiar musical accompaniment he employs to decorate some of his visual sequences.

Ice Cream Fever offers a gorgeous stylish exploration of the subjective struggles and the solutions subjects invent within the field of love and desire. What elevates Chihara’s narrative is  the fact that the stylistic choices are not merely window-dressing, but end up heighten the emotional impact of the subjective trajectories on the spectator. Tetsuya Chihara, thus, does not merely fulfills the expectations, but exceeds them.

Notes

Narra-note 1: This revelation, which comes early in the narrative, retroactively explains the subtly disdainful way Yu welcomes Miwa. Yet, for better or worse, Miwa remains oblivious to Yu’s painful past and her subtle acting-outs.

While Yu keeps this painful subjective truth hidden, it is far from sure that Miwa does not know the tragic fight that split her mother and aunt.

Narra-note 2: Let us also note that, as the two women interact, Yu’s stance slowly changes and some kind of friendship can blossom between them. Yet, the sharing of moments of pleasure does not erase the subjective conflict that defines Yu as subject.