“A delicate short story working on many levels.”

In the very first scene of Two Seasons, Two Strangers a woman notes down ideas for the opening scene of a story, a scene we then see unfold. This spellbinding mise en abyme technique could go on outwards, with someone starting a text by telling how this review starts with telling about the beginning of the movie. Instead, it moves inwards, with Nagisa, the character of the story within the story, being told other stories about the coastal town she spends her summer vacation in. At a local museum she learns about the fishing traditions of the place; then, when she meets Natsuo, who is visiting his relatives, he tells her tales about his childhood by the sea and his mother’s recipes.

Near the end of this chapter of the film the director, Sho Miyake, goes back to the mise en abyme, with a shot of Nagisa and Natsuo seen from behind as they watch a storm forming over the sea, as if they were spectators of a movie and we were sitting in the row behind them; and only a few minutes later, he does indeed show us an audience watching the filmed story of Nagisa and Natsuo. The focus of Two Seasons, Two Strangers then switches to the screenwriter of the film within the film: Li (Shim Eun-kyung), the woman seen in the opening scene. Experiencing a crisis of inspiration and confidence, she goes on an unplanned trip to the mountains, which leads her to the only place with a vacancy, a shabby inn run by grumpy, middle-aged Benzo (Shinichi Tsutsumi).

This Russian doll narrative structure is the solution found by Miyake to put together two separate works by veteran mangaka Yoshiharu Tsuge: the short stories A View of the Seaside and Mister Ben of the Igloo, whose titles convey how distinct they are from one another on both page and screen – a sunny sea and mountains covered in snow. What both stories have in common is their aspiration to give us a glimpse of the bittersweet life of common people, struggling with their anxieties and shortcomings, amplified by the difficulty of living among other people and having to interact with them.

This social awkwardness and lack of self-confidence, and the bitterness they generate creates a bond between Li and Benzo during the short time they spend together, even though they have completely different life journeys. Miyake quietly has them relate to each other, and in doing so subtly manages to make us feel another connection: that developing a story, as Li tries to do, is not unlike tending to an inn, as Benzo does. Both activities require paying attention to the overall feeling conveyed, as well as the little details of the scenes or the scenery; and both are subject to being rejected on the sole basis of the public’s subjectivity, leading to even more personal insecurity.

The way they experience living among humans has made Li and Benzo understand that nothing is black and white; as the latter puts it to the former, he prefers seeing humor and drama intertwined in stories just as they are in real life. And that is indeed how the small adventure they embark on together unfolds – part comedic, part tragic, with both aspects treated with equal care and success by Miyake. Thus, as he did in the beginning of Two Seasons, Two Strangers, the director crafts a delicate short story working on many levels: the emotions, the character study, the beauty of the landscapes surrounding them (gorgeously captured by the cinematography of Yuta Tsukinaga) – and, for one last time, a smart and touching mise en abyme. Li points out this was just the kind of story she wanted and needed to write; and maybe she just did, right under our noses, and what we saw was Miyake playing with fiction and our perception of it.