Probably the most impressive, most fun feature film I’ve ever seen about fandom.  In fact, I was originally going to discuss this title as part of an overall roundup covering Japan Cuts, the Festival of New Japanese Film, but I enjoyed Kisaragi (2007) so much that I wanted to share my thoughts immediately.  Of course documentaries on various fandoms are commonplace and certainly there’s a history of features that use the topic as a springboard to deliver stalker-driven thrillers.  Two films that that have specifically focused on the world of the otaku are Train Man (2005), which I found unexpectedly moving, and more recently, the zany Maiko Haaaan! (2007).  Using romance and comedy respectively as their generic frameworks, these films sporadically offered fresh insights into what it means to be a fan, but neither used its genre so cunningly to that end as Kisaragi, a fairly traditional comic mystery.  And that’s what arguably makes this film great, not just a highly diverting way to spend a couple of hours:  director Yuichi Sato provides pure moviegoing pleasure on so many levels while seamlessly folding more thought-provoking ideas about fandom into its compelling narrative

One of the first anniversary of the title character’s death, a group of five of her hardcore fans meets up to honor her.  Previously knowing each other only by their online handles, each of these men feels out the others in what starts as friendly fellowship and ends up decidedly cat-and-mouse.  Did their beloved Miki Kisaragi, a kind-of pop star, kind-of actress, kind-of model, really commit suicide, or was she perhaps murdered?  Without leaving the premises (except in the form of cleverly done flashbacks), the movie’s storyline nonetheless covers a lot of ground.  One might expect that having all the present-tense events take place in a single interior setting might make the action feel cramped and stagy, but Sato is more than up to the challenge, using the close quarters to wring maximum tension from the proceedings.  The result is a movie experience whose intimate intensity recalls an old-style Agatha Christie play, in which the gradual reveal of the character’s backstories is so well structured that the unity of setting is a blessing—we don’t want to take the lid off the pot by introducing too many outside locations or additional characters.

(© 2007 “KISARAGI” Film Partners)

Neither skewering fandom nor edifying it, but treating it as the complex phenomenon that it is, Kisaragi features an exceptionally smart script and the marvelous acting exemplifies the best of what we mean when we use the word “ensemble.”  Make a point of seeing it at some point, on big screen or small.