“A truly stunning debut, emotionally resonant and visually evocative.”

“What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here” – “Creep,” Radiohead

It has been almost a year, but Kamei (first-timer Naoto Shimajiri, in a mesmerizing performance) is still struggling with the death of his dad. It has fractured the relationship with his mother, for one. But it’s the last day of school before summer break, and the Okinawa climate allows for him and his friends to spend their days loitering in the sun or hanging around on the beach. Kamei also tries to spend time with his maybe-girlfriend Sayaka (Yuma Taira), her coy push-pull routine making the introverted boy even more insecure. To earn a bit of money during the holidays he helps his granddad clean up the local community center, the reason for its state of disarray unclear. Granddad uses it as a political center to advocate for independence for the string of islands that lie between Japan’s southern coast and Taiwan, and to rail against the presence of the American military on the island, a particularly touchy subject in light of a young girl having recently been sexually assaulted by an army man.

Obviously, the old man isn’t too happy when Kamei and his buddies strike up a friendship with Colin (West Mulholland), a young American living on one of the bases. Through a mixture of English and Japanese, which Colin understands but doesn’t speak, they become fast friends. It’s easy to see why Kamei looks up to Colin: tall, athletic, and good-looking, the young man is everything Kamei doesn’t see in himself. Colin is part of Kamei’s sexual awakening, not through direct interaction but through Colin’s tall tales of his ‘conquests’ – the inexperienced Kamei may have a loosely defined thing with Sayaka going on, but gives the impression he hasn’t even rounded first base yet. What connects the two boys is their sense of belonging, even though their viewpoints are diametrically opposed. Kamei would love nothing more than to leave this place, with its memories of his dad and its seemingly aimless island life. Colin on the other hand desperately wants to stay, but his father’s sudden transfer to a base outside of Japan means a forced move is on the horizon. When Colin starts to hang out with Sayaka, the fragile Kamei shuts out not just him, but his friends also, which means the only person he can talk to is a local sex worker twice his age. One final confrontation with his mother may settle his fate on the island.

The Color of the Sun is the feature debut of Xavier Tera, a photographer and commercials director born in Canada, but raised between his native country, the UK, and Japan. Now settled in Tokyo, his personal connection to this story of finding your place in the world is easy to see. The tenderness in his coming-of-age story is palpable in every frame, with the idea of belonging to a place permeating not just the narrative, but the frame itself. Through a consistently strong eye for blocking and composition on Tera’s part, no doubt from his experience as a photographer, he often manages to isolate Kamei in the frame, making the boy’s space in the world even smaller than the Academy ratio already is. His feeling of no longer belonging in this place is underlined through the image, a perfect visual metaphor for not just Kamei’s state of mind, but for several people in the story. Colin also doesn’t know where he belongs, and desperately tries to cling to Kamei and his group of friends to get the feeling of being part of something; on base, the marines hardly give him a glance, feeding his loneliness, and with his father being transferred he can never root himself in one place. Kamei’s grandfather’s fight for Okinawan independence likewise explores this idea of belonging to something, in this case something he doesn’t want to belong to. Even Kamei’s father, who probably committed suicide, may have had similar feelings that led to his depression.

Tera often uses the power of suggestion, the resulting intrigue keeping hold of the viewer’s attention in what at its heart is a slow, contemplative film. It is never outright stated that Kamei’s dad, a marine biologist, killed himself, but it can be read between the lines. Likewise, the connection between the sexual assault and the sudden transfer of Colin’s dad is not made directly, but a perceptive audience can fill in the blanks. Even the relationship between Colin and Kamei seems to be, from Colin’s side, more than just friendship. A kiss on the lips after they fight can be read as playful, but combined with the boasting about his (hetero)sexual prowess and the glances he gives Kamei, it is not inconceivable that his feelings may go beyond friendship. Tera lets these elements flow in and out of the narrative, as elusive as Kamei’s love interest Sayaka, to give the viewer just enough to start connecting some dots.

Shot on 35mm by renowned cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (DoP on Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee), the use of film is essential here. Lush greens and washed-out images suggest the summer heat, with the frame at times almost shimmering. Mukdeeprom delivers exemplary work, and makes The Color of the Sun the best-looking film of the year to date. Tera’s use of sound is just as clever – before we even see Colin, we have already heard the deafening sound of fighter jets flying over, establishing the foreign military presence he is, in his own small way, a part of. He is just as much looking for a sense of belonging as Kamei is. “Get back to where you came from,” Kamei snaps at him at one point, repeating the phrase foreigners are often confronted with. “And where is that?” Colin replies. This is the one moment where Tera verbalizes the concept of the film, if we don’t count the worst karaoke rendition of “Creep” in history, but he has earned it. His The Color of the Sun is a truly stunning debut, emotionally resonant and visually evocative, and a devastating film about human connection and finding your place.