hospitalité / 歓待

Like a sitcom gone out of control, Koji Fukata’s second feature, hospitalité, would work better as television or as the theatrical production it started as. Fukata is a member of the Seinendan theatre company, known for their contemporary theatre works that on the surface carry an almost manifesto-like rejection of western theatrical traditions, but more deeply seem to be a variation of skit comedy. hospitalité looks and feels like filmed theatre. The situation in hospitalité involves Mikio (Yamauchi Kenji) and his wife, Natsuki (Sugino Kiki), owners of a small print shop in Tokyo.  A certain Kagawa (Kanji Furutachi) appears. He insinuates himself into a job. Soon he’s living with them with his suspect “wife,” a gaijin who manages to claim different nationalities. By the time she seduces Mikio, the die is set for Kagawa to up the ante, bringing in a crew of gaijin to live in their cramped house. This trickster’s motivations are never explained and by the end all have disappeared except Mikio, Natsuki and their daughter – everything back to normal, but changed.

Originally published in EL Magazine, April 2011