In Japan, people who fall off the conventional life path of school, job and marriage have their own acronym: NEET, which stands for not in education, employment or training. In addition to this moniker, they may be labeled as hikikomori (social recluses).
The overlap between the two groups is not total, though, as Takashi Komatsu shows with uncommon insight in his debut feature, “Cat and Salt, or Sugar.” Born in 1981 and a once-promising student filmmaker who was a NEET himself, Komatsu knows what he’s talking about. The director has said in interviews that his protagonist, the bright and eccentric Ichiro (Kentaro Tamura), is his alter ego.
However, “Cat and Salt, or Sugar” is not the usual semi-autobiographical drama. Scripted by Komatsu and produced under the Pia Film Festival Scholarship program, it is reminiscent of the early offbeat films of Jim Jarmusch, if minus their punkish edge. The pace is leisurely, the tone is dryly comic and the point of view is somewhat removed from reality. The camera often looks down as though examining the characters and their goings-on like a curious fly on the ceiling.
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