The Woodsman and the Rain 2012

The Woodsman and the Rain is a slow-burning that is superficially about making films but underneath is about friendship, trust and embracing the different.

The characterisation throughout the film is beautiful and gently played, nobody gives long speeches, over emotes, or get too excited no matter the situation. This is the world of the small gesture, the simple sentence and in all honesty the film is better for it. Many films would be. Perhaps this is a cultural thing I do not know, and although very fond of Japanese films I confess to ignorance when it comes to themes of their stories and how they are played out.

The pace is slow, careful, possible too slow and way too careful for many tastes and that is understandable but the story for me is fascinating and somewhere along the line a distant relative of ‘One Cut of Dead’ wherein the making of the zombie film is stressful and difficult, but in this case, this is shown in form of one character, the director Koichi who is so underconfident, so shy, he can barely function. It is up to the patient, and unaffected Katsuhiko to pull the youngster out of his spiral and sure him up to become the writer and director he should be, even though he apparently cannot do this with his own son. That in a nutshell is the story.

How we get from A to Z is the good part. The film is beautifully filmed in a mountainous verdant forest and looks natural from beginning to end. There is a warmly comedic thread running throughout without the story and characters within being unrealistic or played for laughs. This partially due to the acting particularly from Shun Oguri and Kôji Yakusho who bring a completely natural feeling to the proceedings and the slowly blossoming friendship that feels real and unforced.

Much like One Cut of the Dead, the entire story builds to one pivotal moment, one pivotal feel-good moment that should leave you smiling and happy at the conclusion. Without ramming the message down your throat the makers have said embrace change, enjoy the differences and do not pass up challenges, not matter what you may feel. In the wrong hands this could be truly awful, in the right hands this is a gentle massage, a few smiling words from your favourite grandparent.

The Woodsman and the Rain was created by the right hands.

No film or story is perfect and where The Woodsman and the Rain fails is ironically its strength too. The slow torpid pace can be too slow, too torpid and the story meanders far too much and almost self-indulgently in the middle, certainly to the point where you cannot see where the story is going. Some good editing may have helped and slewed off the baggage. Further to this, the character of Koichi, particularly at the start is too timid, too introverted, to have been able to even turn up to the film set. It was so understated so strange initially I did not realise who he was within the story. Shun Oguri as fine as he was in that role could have been helped by the director by being told to dial it in two notches at least.

Overall, this film is a soft, slow, warm-hearted tale, about how two people from hugely different backgrounds and experiences can help each other and become friends under the most unlikely of circumstances.

I enjoyed The Woodsman and the Rain it made me smile throughout the running time, made me feel happy as I thought about it after the conclusion. It was fun.