April Fish (1986)

Original title: Shigatsu no sakana

Director Shohei Nemoto (Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Yukihiro Takahashi) made a critically acclaimed, yet commercially unsuccessful film a decade or so ago, and has been floundering ever since, while declaring he’s an artiste to anyone who doesn’t want to hear it. Shohei did manage to marry the leading lady of his film, now slightly aging star Fujiko Kinugasa (Miyoko Akaza), however, and she’s been paying the bills whereas Shohei stays at home and indulges in his hobbies of cooking fine French cuisine and nibbling cheese.

Shohei did shoot a – never used, of course – commercial on a South Sea Island a couple of years ago and got friendly with one of the local chiefs, a second generation Japanese named Panapora Handa (Tetsuro Tanba). They got so friendly, the Chief lent Shohei his wife for a night, as is apparently local custom in this very special South Seas community. Now, Shohei didn’t actually do anything untoward even when provided the opportunity because he actually loves his wife very much indeed, but when Handa comes to Japan for a bit, our hero is very much afraid the Chief is going to want to have Shohei reciprocate with the wife sharing.

Even though he isn’t the type to cheat on his wife, Shohei also isn’t the kind of guy able to say no to that sort of idea, or admit any part of this bizarre business to Fujiko. Fortunately, a screenwriter friend of his has a brilliant idea: why not hire a young actress (Kyo Kanoko) who is very much into free love to pretend to be his wife for an evening? Surely, nothing at all can go wrong, there.

Nobuhiko Obayashi, rightly beloved for Hausu in cult movie circles, was a director of many more facets than I understood before I started to dive deeper into his filmography. What connects all of his films are immense technical abilities as a director, as well as the knowledge when and how to apply these abilities for any given project. Which may mean going hog-wild for two hours, or never moving one’s camera for three.

Visually, April Fish is a pretty calm film for Obayashi, but adding too many flourishes to this wild, often slapstick-heavy homage to screwball comedies and especially Billy Wilder would have made the film utterly insufferable. As it stands, Obayashi puts a heavy emphasis on catching the physicality of his actors, be it Takahashi’s nervy, neurotic qualities, or Kyo Kanoko’s silliness and sexuality.

This isn’t a movie that’s afraid of a pratfall or a thrown condiment, yet there’s also an emotional core here that speaks about a marriage in crisis, where everything that’s actually important between a couple is left unspoken, and where all necessary fights have been avoided for years. It just does so through the language of screwball comedy, an epic cooking scene, and Tetsuro Tanba chewing the scenery in new ways even for this experienced chewer.

One might look askance at some of the racial politics here – the sexual ones are actually much less regressive than the plot description would make one fear – but the film’s basic silliness really works as a shield here I see no point in even trying to push aside.