Nishijima, Hidetoshi

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    Hidetoshi Nishijima Was ‘Overwhelmed’ by This Filmmaker’s Work

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    After seeing “Husbands” and “Minnie and Moskowitz,” the actor from “Drive My Car” and the new Apple TV+ series “Sunny” said, “I couldn’t go home. I just kept bicycling around.”The morning after “Drive My Car” won an Oscar for best international feature, its lead actor Hidetoshi Nishijima was already planning his next project.Nishijima, 53, met with the director and screenwriter of the upcoming Apple TV+ show “Sunny” and is now one of its stars.In “Sunny,” which began streaming this month, Nishijima plays Masa, an employee at a secretive robotics company in Japan as well as the husband to Suzie Sakamoto, an American expatriate played by Rashida Jones. When Masa and their son go missing, Suzie embarks on a quest to find out more about the company and the husband she thought she knew.“In this show, there’s trust and betrayal,” Nishijima said in a video interview from Tokyo, where he lives with his family. “There’s technology that has a good side and a dangerous side. This show really explores how as a human sometimes you don’t even know who you are.”He discussed the way he brings a bit of nature to his home, the thing he and his “Drive My Car” character have in common and the filmmaking book he keeps coming back to. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Movie TheatersWhen I was in my 20s and 30s, I wasn’t really working. I was an actor, but I wasn’t working. So I was going to the movies every day. In Tokyo, we could watch every movie in the world. I would watch two or three movies a day. Looking back, I treasure those moments. I was still doing something productive, and I feel like that kind of saved me in a sense. It helped me keep my sanity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘2/Duo’ Review: Relationship Rituals

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      This spare Japanese drama from 1997 gets a belated New York release.Regular film festival attendees might recognize the name of the Japanese director Nobuhiro Suwa (“H Story” and “A Perfect Couple”). But his 1997 feature, “2/Duo,” is only now receiving a New York release; it’s showing in tandem with a series at Metrograph on “Japanese indies from the punk years.” But little about “2/Duo” is particularly punk.Rather, the film is a spare relationship drama centered on a volatile couple, Kei (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Yu (Eri Yu). Kei is a nonentity of a screen actor. (Near the beginning, he is shown practicing incidental dialogue before being informed that his scene has been cut.) Yu works at a clothing boutique. After Kei proposes, in a manner so abrupt that Yu thinks he’s rehearsing lines, their innocuous conversations increasingly turn into arguments.Given Kei’s profession, Suwa suggests there might be a performative aspect to the bickering. (Kei has a habit of phoning Yu, who asks where he is; he always says he doesn’t know.) As the film observes them in lengthy shots — occasionally interrupted by cuts to black — with Kei’s unmotivated outbursts sometimes breaking up interactions that drag or stall, their behavior looks suspiciously like the result of actors’ improvisation.It is not surprising to learn that a script was tossed and the performers developed their own lines. Similar techniques yielded brilliance from John Cassavetes, Jacques Rivette and Mike Leigh. But here they mostly result in characters who don’t appear fully realized. Whatever makes Kei and Yu tick, to the extent that the collaborative process ever fleshed it out, does not come across onscreen.2/DuoNot rated. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More

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      The Best Actors of 2021

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      HonorSwinton Byrne

      in ‘The Souvenir Part II’

      In both parts of Joanna Hogg’s autobiographical films, Honor Swinton Byrne faces a double challenge. As Julie Harte, she is portraying a version of the director, and frequently sharing the screen with her own mother, the formidable Tilda Swinton, who plays Julie’s genteel mother. “The Souvenir” is the two-part story of a young artist’s development, and Swinton Byrne’s confidence in her powers seems to grow alongside Julie’s.

      In both parts of Joanna Hogg’s autobiographical films, Honor Swinton Byrne faces a double challenge. As Julie Harte, she is portraying a version of the director, and frequently sharing the screen with her own mother, the formidable Tilda Swinton, who plays Julie’s genteel mother. “The Souvenir” is the two-part story of a young artist’s development, and Swinton Byrne’s confidence in her powers seems to grow alongside Julie’s. More