Film ReviewsMan From Reno: melon dropped
June 19, 2015 Anchorage Press
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It was a dark and stormy night but also really foggy, so visibility was zero when Sheriff Paul Del Moral (Pepe Serna) comes up on an abandoned car and a few yards down the road hits its driver, a Japanese man, bringing the car to a stop, cracking its windshield and dropping the viewer smack in the center of a noir-style murder mystery. Man From Reno was directed by Dave Boyle who wrote the thriller in collaboration with Joel Clark and Michael Lerman.
Man from Reno's plot comes together from different directions with different characters approaching from their respective vantage points, like a map of clues that intersect and come and go until they meet at the same destination. Before Sheriff Del Moral can question the accident victim, the man disappears from the hospital, and like a good, old-fashioned sleuth the sheriff begins his investigation. The same Japanese man later intersects with another key character, that of Japanese mystery author Aki Akahori played by Ayako Fujitani; her performance is one of the treats of the film. Fujitani herself is both a writer and an actor and the daughter of Steven Seagal with his first wife, aikido master, Miyako Fujitani. Fujitani is charismatic, and so is her portrayal of Aki. She develops the character of Aki, her story and personal angst with a deep sense of compassion and complexity, thus revealing regret and joy. Viewers become deeply invested in Aki who has written a series based on a sleuth named Inspector Takanabe. She is at the height of her career and her novels have an international following, but Aki has reached a point where change is necessary and her mental health is suffering. She decides to runaway and is determined to end the series, but like Arthur Conan Doyle or J.D. Salinger, she finds that it's not easy to end a series or run away because distance ignites a fire of intrigue all its own. When arriving in San Francisco, Aki calls some old friends and has dinner with them. In the course of the evening the topic of the "Melon Drop" arises, and is used to illustrate the naïveté of Japanese (or really most) tourists. As Aki explains, the prank consists of carrying around a melon, finding a tourist, bumping into them and dropping the melon on the ground. The perpetrator then asks the tourist for $50 for the melon. Because the tourist doesn't know how much melons cost in America, they pay the price. Needless to say, the melon drop metaphor becomes an integral part of Aki's experience.
Aki meets a tall, dark and handsome stranger, Akira Suzuki (Kazuki Kitamura) who is at the center of the plot. After a short-lived fling, Akira disappears leaving behind his suitcase. Like Sheriff Del Moral, Aki begins her investigation and applies her Takanabe-skills to find Akira. The mystery builds up nicely for the first part of the film but hits a lull until the Sheriff and Aki intersect. The clues take the characters through the streets of San Francisco and the nooks and crannies from North Beach, down through China Town, into the edges of Hayes Valley, and eventually down to a row of boathouses floating on the bay.
Akira is a Mr. Ripley type character, but the focus of the story is on the two sleuths, leaving little room for viewers to know more about Akira. The lack of story development for Akira works to the film's advantage because it creates a deeper sense of dread around him, making him less sympathetic and more sinister than Tom Ripley. The juxtaposition between Aki's search for clarity in her life, and Akira's Faustian existence is jarring and intriguing. Viewers may feel that the fog from the opening scene that set the course of events in motion lingers throughout and clears only when Aki has reached clarity. Like all good mysteries, the answers were there all along, but are only really known to the viewers because the characters themselves remain in the fog until the end. For viewers, the unpredictable and final twist in the plot of Man From Reno, will give them a sense of having been "melon dropped".
Man From Reno shows on Monday, June 22 at Bear Tooth. Visit beartooththeatrepub.com for more information
Man from Reno's plot comes together from different directions with different characters approaching from their respective vantage points, like a map of clues that intersect and come and go until they meet at the same destination. Before Sheriff Del Moral can question the accident victim, the man disappears from the hospital, and like a good, old-fashioned sleuth the sheriff begins his investigation. The same Japanese man later intersects with another key character, that of Japanese mystery author Aki Akahori played by Ayako Fujitani; her performance is one of the treats of the film. Fujitani herself is both a writer and an actor and the daughter of Steven Seagal with his first wife, aikido master, Miyako Fujitani. Fujitani is charismatic, and so is her portrayal of Aki. She develops the character of Aki, her story and personal angst with a deep sense of compassion and complexity, thus revealing regret and joy. Viewers become deeply invested in Aki who has written a series based on a sleuth named Inspector Takanabe. She is at the height of her career and her novels have an international following, but Aki has reached a point where change is necessary and her mental health is suffering. She decides to runaway and is determined to end the series, but like Arthur Conan Doyle or J.D. Salinger, she finds that it's not easy to end a series or run away because distance ignites a fire of intrigue all its own. When arriving in San Francisco, Aki calls some old friends and has dinner with them. In the course of the evening the topic of the "Melon Drop" arises, and is used to illustrate the naïveté of Japanese (or really most) tourists. As Aki explains, the prank consists of carrying around a melon, finding a tourist, bumping into them and dropping the melon on the ground. The perpetrator then asks the tourist for $50 for the melon. Because the tourist doesn't know how much melons cost in America, they pay the price. Needless to say, the melon drop metaphor becomes an integral part of Aki's experience.
Aki meets a tall, dark and handsome stranger, Akira Suzuki (Kazuki Kitamura) who is at the center of the plot. After a short-lived fling, Akira disappears leaving behind his suitcase. Like Sheriff Del Moral, Aki begins her investigation and applies her Takanabe-skills to find Akira. The mystery builds up nicely for the first part of the film but hits a lull until the Sheriff and Aki intersect. The clues take the characters through the streets of San Francisco and the nooks and crannies from North Beach, down through China Town, into the edges of Hayes Valley, and eventually down to a row of boathouses floating on the bay.
Akira is a Mr. Ripley type character, but the focus of the story is on the two sleuths, leaving little room for viewers to know more about Akira. The lack of story development for Akira works to the film's advantage because it creates a deeper sense of dread around him, making him less sympathetic and more sinister than Tom Ripley. The juxtaposition between Aki's search for clarity in her life, and Akira's Faustian existence is jarring and intriguing. Viewers may feel that the fog from the opening scene that set the course of events in motion lingers throughout and clears only when Aki has reached clarity. Like all good mysteries, the answers were there all along, but are only really known to the viewers because the characters themselves remain in the fog until the end. For viewers, the unpredictable and final twist in the plot of Man From Reno, will give them a sense of having been "melon dropped".
Man From Reno shows on Monday, June 22 at Bear Tooth. Visit beartooththeatrepub.com for more information