JFF23: We Made a Beautiful Bouquet

Synopsis

The last train at midnight leaves a group of stragglers stranded at the station, who opt for a bar rather than paying for a taxi home. Among them are twenty-two-year-olds Mugi and Kinu, whose curiosity for one another is fated to have a longer and more intricate outcome than they might have first expected. Caught in the period of youth when many enter the gruelling Japanese workforce, Mugi and Kinu are two dreamers who are occupied by their creative interests, while living under the increasing pressure of maintaining an income without compromising their passions.

Marvellously scripted by recent Cannes winner Yūji Sakamoto (Monster), this romance genuinely chronicles not only the fleeting lifespan of love, but also those crucial self-defining years of ‘becoming’, as Mugi and Kinu reckon with the hard realities of societal life imposing on their relationship and senses of self. Patient and bittersweet, We Made A Beautiful Bouquet blossoms and recedes in the seasonal tides of their cityside dwelling, and features award-winning performances by leading actors Kasumi Arimura and Masaki Suda.