It is not uncommon for people to go through a period of feeling a failure to oneself and the others. The diminishing of one’s self-worth is, in most if not all cases, caused by the sabotaging of the functioning of our ideal ego by sudden external events and situations. As the cause of sudden dip in self-worth is relational in nature, it is evident that the solution also lies in the field of the others.  

In Sumiko 22, Sawako Fukuoka offers the spectator a glance at the life of Sumiko (Haruna Hori), whose struggles with her self-worth ever since she quite her job. Yet, can she, in the two-weeks that the spectator follows her, find a way out of her subjective struggle?  

Fukuoka’s slice-of-life narrative corroborates, first and foremost, that self-worth is deeply social and relational in nature. While the subject can rely on the signifiers of the others to stage an acceptable image and fit within the conversational flow, the lingering doubt of being worth the Other’s love inhibits Sumiko from bringing her own subject in play and affect the path of the conversation.

Sumiko’s doubt is deeply connected with the subjective emptiness that marks her (life). What she does not want to bring into play in the relational field is her very emptiness. Sumiko feels she has nothing subjective to reveal to her friends. The signifiers of the others, despite offering Sumiko a mirror-like frame to reflect an agreeable ego to the others, signal the other’s subjective fullness and complicates Sumiko’s ability to offer the other a glance at the subjectivity she feels she lacks. 

However, Sumiko does sometimes succeed in granting another subject a glance at her peculiarities. Yet, as revealing something of her subject (e.g. her fixation on salmon) is risky – it might scare the Other and his love away, the desire to speak is highly dependent on the person she is with. It should be evident that whenever Sumiko speaks through the frame of her own ego, she demands the Other’s love (Narra-note 1, Narra-note 2, psycho-note 1).     

Sumiko’s subjective emptiness is also evident in the many solitary activities she engages in to pass the time – e.g. taking selfies from herself, drawing her parent’s cat Okoge, eating egg with mayonnaise. These activities reverberate her emptiness because they are cut off from the Other – they have no address. Any speech or sound that she utters while engaging in these activities is auto-erotic in nature.

Yet, Sumiko 22 is not a narrative about Sumiko’s emptiness, but about Sumiko’s attempt to reach out to the Other to organize others around her so that her subjective voice could possibly find an address – that she when she is ready, can vocalize her doubts to someone who can and wants to receive them. It is a narrative that stages the subject’s preparatory stages to combat the sudden emptiness and the diminished self-worth, as instigated by her societal failure.  

The composition of Sumiko 22 is a quite static affair, offering the spectator a peaceful concatenation of static shots. Neither the sudden slow dynamic shot nor the fleeting shaky moment within Fukuoka’s composition derails the fact that the visual pleasure of his narrative lies in its static moments. Fukuoka delivers some nice shot-compositions and adds some light-hearted touches with some visual decorations (the repetition of sudden zoom-ins) (Sound-note 1).

Sumiko 22 is a narrative of subtlety. While some spectator will surely feel like nothing happens, Fukuoka has crafted a subtle but playful narrative about a subject who slowly tries to crawl out the hole of emptiness and diminished self-worth she stumbled in after quitting her job. Highly recommended.

Notes

Narra-note 1: One time, Sumiko tries to vocalize her doubts about her own ego and subjectivity to her roommate Hana. Sadly, Hana takes Sumiko’s chance away to question herself by steering the conversation away from the emptiness she just brought into play. The subjective emptiness was masterly washed away by the imaginary fullness of happy but empty conversing.   

Narra-note 2: This desire to be loved is most evident in her fantasies being having certain men who surround her as her boyfriend. Yet, it also reverberates in Sumiko’s other enunciations.

Psycho-note 1: Some spectators might argue that she reveals quiet a lot about herself to some others, but they forget that what she says fits within the imaginary flow of the conversation and stays within the boundaries of what is socially accepted

The speech might seem subjective – sketching out a fleeting corner of her ego to the other, but it always has a factual flavour and keeps her doubts about herself radically hidden. Nevertheless, the demand for love is also present in these enunciations.  

Sound-note 1: However,the light-hearted nature of these decorations is not visual in nature, but auditive. It is the accompanying sound that gives the visual decoration its light-hearted flavour.