DANCE WITH ME (2019)
Film Review
As a person who loves music, I find it difficult to visualize a world where there is no music. A lot of movies like, Frozen, The Lion King, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, etc. would not be as amazing as they are without their musical segments. In this film, by Shinobu Yaguchi, not only do the musical segments add flavour to the story, but they are also elements that drive the events of this story. As we know, Shizuka Suzuki has been hypnotized by the hypnotist, Martin Ueda, which causes her to uncontrollably sing and dance whenever she hears music, even a cell phone ringtone. This proved to be hazardous not only for her daily life, but for her safety according to, for instance, the scene where she is going to work after Nana leaves and the scene at the restaurant.
After watching this movie at the Fantasia International Film Festival, I asked director and screenwriter, Shinobu Yaguchi, during the Q&A with him, “what are [his] thoughts about music?” He first said, via his translator, "this is a very difficult question to answer," but then he said “this is not something absolutely necessary in order to live and without that we may die, no.” “However, if we have that then our life becomes richer.” I could not agree more because, at the beginning of the film, Shizuka is nevertheless doing fine with her life. She has, for instance, a good job and her own place in an apartment, but by paying attention to her attitude, she does not seem as happy as she is at the end of the film. To begin with, we learn that she dislikes musicals according to her conversation with Nana in the bus ride scene and a bad experience in her childhood. In addition, Shizuka seems to be uninterested to have anything to do for or with her family given how she gets easily irritated when her parents call and ask her why she does not come visit them and when her sister asks her to watch Nana for a day. However, all of this changes after she gets hypnotized and journeys with Chie Saito to find Martin and lift the hypnosis. First, after successfully undoing the hypnosis, she is seen happily singing with her new friends Chie and Yoshio Watanabe on the ride back home. Second, rather than return to her old job, despite getting promoted to an office position, she quits and returns to Chie, who is working on opening a music studio. Third and lastly, she is seen happily attending Nana's musical school performance with not only her new friends but her family as well. By allowing herself to sing and dance again, Shizuka's life became "richer," like Mr. Yaguchi said, because she found and reconnected with things that seemed to be missing in her life: singing and dancing (something she liked doing during her childhood before the bad experience) and value the important people in her life like, her family.
This film not only shows us how music can make a person’s life “richer” but the film itself demonstrates richness via its musical segments. In, for example, the musical segment of the song Happy Valley by Orange Pekoe in the scene at Shizuka's workplace, despite acknowledging, after the song is over, that only Shizuka was singing and dancing in reality, the movie takes us during musical segments like that one into a happy, fun and entertaining world where not only Shizuka but everyone around her is happily singing and dancing. Without the musical segments like, Happy Valley, the story would still remain intact, but what we would see on the screen won’t be equally as fun and entertaining. Therefore, if you are a music lover, enjoy this adventurous film which will keep you on your toes in your dancing shoes!
Review by Dean Attari
Producer Vei Chong