Press screenings here are usually cut-and-dry affairs, with the sole sales pitch being a PR staffer reciting the film's opening date and running time before the show begins. The one I attended for "Yurusenai, Aitai (Again)," the feature debut by award-winning shorts director Junichi Kanai, was blazingly different, however.
After the credits rolled for this drama about a teenage romance that ends in date rape, 18-year-old star Aoi Yoshikura stepped before the blank screen and thanked us politely for coming, but as she talked about the film and her character, tears began streaming down her face (they were already trickling down mine) and she found it hard to continue. Actors often describe how they identify with a character: Yoshikura felt immensely sorry for hers — a girl whose dream of pure love turns into a nightmare.
That sincerity and transparency make her performance as the abused heroine more than an impersonation: It's a becoming. And this, I should add, is a thought that came to me well into the film — and before Yoshikura made her surprise appearance at the screening.