While the art of filmmaking has been explored from various angles in Japanese cinema – The Magic Hour (2008), The Woodsman and the Rain (2012), Why Don’t You Play in Hell? (2013), It’s a Summer Film (2021), there are but a few films that deal with the comfy places where the spectator goes to immerse himself in film.

As directors are known to utilize societal events to explore social and interpersonal dynamics in a new light, it is not surprising that some directors interweaved the corona pandemic into their narratives – Mayu Nakamura, for instance, crafted the beautiful She Is Me, I Am Her (2022) – and that Japan’s mini-theatres, whose existence was threatened by the pandemic and the governmental response to it, became the main subject of certain films (Your Lovely Smile (2022), Hijacked Youth: Dare to Stop Us 2 (2024)).

Yet, rather than offering an exploration of the financial impact of the pandemic on these cinemas, the post-corona narratives seek to sketch out the general struggle these mini-theatres faced and face within the societal field. Hideo Jojo’s Twilight Cinema Blues is no different. Jojo’s film is as much about tracing out the subjective trajectory Takeru Kondo (Keisuke Koide), a homeless film director rescued by cinema-owner Mr. Kajiwara (Mitsuru Fukikoshi), as it is about sketching out the situation of the mini-theatres in the contemporary Japanese societal field (general-note 1).

The spectator learns, very early on in the narrative, that Kajiwara’s La Scala Theater is deep in the red. There is a two-fold cause for his financial struggle – a societal one and a subjective one. The societal cause for La Scala Theatre’s struggle is not explicitly evoked in Jojo’s narrative, yet the spectator will have not trouble in grasping that the proliferation of small screens and the rise of streaming platforms are two of the main causes.

It is due to these changes, which changed how we consume entertainment, that these cosy yet often rundown places face the threat of extinction. The disappearance of such places in the societal field would not only be a social loss, but also a subjective one. As Twilight Cinema Blues evokes, these intimate spaces that celebrate art of cinema are places that form social bonds, can determine the subject’s future path, and can save subjects from their lonesome walk on the path of self-destruction.

Yet, Jojo also takes the time to underline, via the character of Kajiwara, that the contemporary struggle of the mini-theatres is not merely due to societal changes, but also due to inability of the owners to appropriately respond to these fast-paced changes and find ways to attract new audiences to introduce the rich history of cinema to. Owners, as Yoko (-) playfully mocks Kajiwara for, have been unable to foster a more business-oriented mindset. 

Much of Kajiwara’s inability to act is due to him losing his passion for film. To put it differently, it is because he lost this passion that his ongoing financial troubles can inhibit his thinking about his cinema and short-circuit his desire to act. He has, as the years went by, slowly turned into a cold realist who, unconsciously, gave up on his cinema – “I wish I could [close the cinema] right now.”; “But organizing events also costs money”; “Crowdfunding is bothersome”. Kajiwara refuses to close his cinema is thus not because he is consciously passionate about film, but because he feels responsible for his staff and his loyal costumers.

However, it is due the support of his staff – Miku (Nanami Hidaka) and Erika (Sakura Fujiwara) – and loyal costumers – the unpopular actor Watanabe (Ayumu Nakajima), the film critic Nasu (Kenta Kiguchi), Jazz-bar owner Shirakawa (Takaya Kuroda) and highschooler Kawamoto (-), that Kajiwara can tap into his repressed passion and ask Kondo to break-through his inhibition and complete his next feature film for the 60th anniversary event of the La Scala Theatre.    

Sadly, despite the compelling set-up of the narrative, Twilight Cinema Blues never turns into a film that fully engages the spectator nor into a touching celebration of the social and subjective impact of the cinematic art and mini-theatres. The problem is that, despite a few moments that touch the spectator and arouse some emotions, the emotional flow of the narrative is too flat. The main cause of this emotional flatness is that Twilight Cinema Blues is too segmented for its own good. Jojo is tasked with the impossible task to give each character, whose life is influenced, in one way or another, by the art of the moving image, an emotional resolution.

The need to give each narrative thread, each perspective on the film’s ultimate message, an affective current forces Jojo to water down the overall emotional impact of his film. This assemblage of glances, moreover, blurs the film’s message for the spectator. What Jojo tries to evoke with all the various characters and narratives is the simple fact that the presence of a lack, whatever form it assumes (e.g. lack of money, lack of a financial lack, lack of knowledge, lack of a loved one, … etc.), is necessary for the subject to heed the call of his creative potential or to keep the door of his mind ajar to allow the art of cinema to have its formative impact (Narra-note 1).       

Hideo Jojo keeps the composition of Twilight Cinema Blues quite simple, offering the spectator a balanced mix of static and dynamic shots. The director often relies on longer takes to frame interactions or to turn the spectator into a gaze within the cinema. Dynamism is utilized to track Kondo and others as they move (and interact with each other) within the narrative space and spatial dynamism is applied to add subtle visual decorative elements or to introduce new narrative elements (e.g. the woman on the slide, the film poster of Casablanca, …). 

The music of Twilight Cinema Blues is either playfully light-hearted or moody bluesy. The former, not surprisingly, decorates the more whimsical turns in the narrative while the blues pieces give the unfolding of the narrative a moody, yet dignified quality.

Twilight Cinema Blues tries to be a trick of all trades, but is ultimately a master of none. Jojo’s light-hearted comedy, sprinkled with a dash of familial drama, celebrates the importance of lack for the subject, yet fails to give this celebration a fitting emotional denouement.   

Notes

General-note 1: The livelihood protection law featured in the beginning of the narrative is meant to safeguard the minimum standard of living for every citizen by granting them an allowance.

The side-narrative with the NPO ultimately underlines two intertwined facts: not all people-in-need find their way to the welfare office and people-in-need, due to their dire situation, can easily fall prey to scams and fraudulent practices.  

Narra-note 1: Jojo also takes the time to delves into Takeru Kondo’s past and explore the subjective event that pushed him into depression and linger off the path of his desire.