We all used to send postcards to show loved ones our location when we traveled away from home; some of us still do, though it’s a practice tinged with nostalgia. It’s more immediate, after all, just to send a photo, though somehow both more and less personal: What you lose in tactile, handwritten effort, you gain in the person’s actual perspective, the comfort of seeing what they’re seeing. As it follows a devoted father reluctantly separated from his family for two months, Miiku Sakanishi‘s deeply affecting debut feature “Memorizu” marvels at the forms of digital connection that are now woven into our closest relationships, finding the poetic intimacy in very ordinary communications.
A standout in Tribeca’s international competition, this elegantly reserved film won the festival’s award for best new director, and ought to similarly impress world cinema programmers and distributors as it continues along the fest circuit. Sakanishi’s gentle touch recalls contemporary compatriots like Koji Fukada (“Nagi Notes”) and Sho Miyake (“Two Seasons, Two Strangers”) in its quiet, hopeful humanism and stylistic restraint. Though “Memorizu” is narratively sparse, it holds attention with the well-observed clarity of its domestic portraiture and — aptly enough, for a story in which much depends on photography — the sharp, subtle beauty of its image-making.
