Takamasa Oe‘s “Whale Bones” (Japanese: 鯨の骨), which recently had its North American Premiere at this year’s JAPAN CUTS, plays like a multifaceted story about loneliness and depression in today’s social media-driven world. There’s a tenderness to it that’s admirable, even if Oe struggles to combine the elements of his storytelling together.
Unfortunately, such undertaking, noble a filmmaker’s intent may be, doesn’t always pan out neatly. And with “Whale Bones,” the way it raises more questions than answers underscores that half-baked attempt.
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Of Random (Dead) Hookups
When Mamiya (Motoki Ochiai) excitedly suggests to his fiancée that watches look better and more practical than wedding rings, he gets the surprise of his life: She breaks up with him, ostensibly blaming Mamiya’s meek personality. As he sinks into despair, he finally caves in to his officemate’s encouragement to sign up on a virtual dating site so that Mamiya could hook up with random people.
Trying it once yields a match, a girl in her teens — ‘too young to his liking’ — whom Mamiya brings home. However, when he comes out of the shower, he finds the girl dead on his bed, pills scattered all over and with a note that reads,
“Goodbye. Enjoy me while I’m still warm!”
In a state of panic and stupor, Mamiya decides to bury the body in the woods. But before he could do so, the body mysteriously disappeared from his car trunk.
A dead-end job, a cheating ex-fiancée, a dead hookup. Oe sets up the film as a noir-tinged thriller at this point, when he suddenly pivots to another direction by focusing on technology.
Augmented Reality-Powered Connections
Consumed by guilt over Aska’s presumed death and his cowardly reaction, Mamiya further descends into depression. One night, a chance encounter with a social media influencer-wannabe introduces him to a social networking site called ‘Mimi’. Through the app, a user posts video messages of themselves they shot in a specific place. Their followers, in turn, would use augmented reality to seek those real-world locations to be able to watch said videos. (Think of Snapchat and TikTok in an unholy marriage to Pokémon Go.)
The young girl encourages Mamiya to download Mimi on his phone, create an account, and search for Aska, a popular influencer the girl obsesses over who curiously hasn’t posted any update for days.
Mamiya then sees Aska (Japanese singer Ano) as the same girl he hooked up with a few nights ago.
Wanting answers to her disappearance, he follows Aska’s footsteps which the latter left on Mimi. In the process, Mamiya slowly becomes attracted to the young woman, who turns out to be just as lonely as he is.
‘Whale Bones’: An Interesting Mess of Ideas That Don’t Quite Meld
Written and directed by Oe — who co-wrote the Oscar-winning “Drive My Car” with Ryusuke Hamaguchi — “Whale Bones” manages to be thought-provoking even despite its shortcomings. Through the film, Oe examines the loneliness and desperation of our technology-reliant modern life. More importantly, the movie serves as a critique of our desire to connect with other people, without having an iota of ironic self-awareness about where we’re actually looking.
But while “Drive My Car” earns its imposing three-hour runtime with a slow-burn meditation of grief, bitterness, and lies we tell others and ourselves; “Whale Bones” meanders with the premise it has on its hands involving characters disconnected from their daily lives. Illogical character decisions, unexplained plot holes, unexplored subplots, unanswered questions: all this feels as if Oe realized he had so many ways through which he wanted to convey his theme, but didn’t want to let go of any of them.
Yes, I concede that there is much to admire in “Whale Bones.” In fact, it already counts as a win for me that it made me reflect with its incisive approach to human relationships in a virtual-mediated world. At best, the film drives home the point that for the most part, the obsession for fame in the age of the internet doesn’t just come from wanting to be popular. Instead, it also comes from a place of wanting to be needed, to be accepted, to be understood.
Then again, while the film is packed with ideas, Oe struggles to weave them into a cohesive narrative within its short runtime. As a result, even at a lean 90 minutes, the film feels more concerned with ideas and less with its execution, and a little too long for its own good.
A self-described cinephile who can’t stop talking—and writing—about films. Paul also moonlights as ghostwriter and editor for a few memoirs. He currently resides in the Philippines.
