Love on Trial

Koji Fukada delves into the heart of the Japanese entertainment industry, orchestrating a tale as subtle as it is subdued on self-possession.

For Koji Fukada, love is always a complicated affair. Just as “Harmonium” showed the dissolution of a couple when a foreign element enters the home, “Love Life” portrayed it as a delicate domestic fiction. Distorted, hindered, or contaminated by an external structure, Fukada’s focus in film after film is less on romantic passion and more on the social systems that stifle it. With “Love on Trial,” Fukada takes this logic to the absurd: love as a contractual fault. It could have been the starting point for satire. Mai, a J-pop idol (played by Kyoko Saito, former member of the idol group Hinatazaka46), is pursued for engaging in a romantic relationship, contrary to the pure image her employer sells to fans.

Despite the extreme straightforwardness of this subject, the Japanese filmmaker never falls into easy acid humor. With the usual restraint and calmness of his direction, he creates a subdued world where violence is always extremely diffuse. The film, however, presents a compelling critique of the Japanese entertainment industry, as well as of a capitalism of emotions where authenticity is only accepted if simulated. “Love on Trial” goes beyond just critiquing the idol industry, tapping into one of the filmmaker’s most constant themes: how contemporary structures hollow out individuals of their own experience. Perhaps the most melancholic aspect of the film is the idea that a feeling, once captured by the norm, fades away for good.

“Love on Trial” by Koji Fukada (2h08) starring Saito Kyoko, Yuki Kura, Kenjiro Tsuda. In theaters on March 25.