OYU
2023 · 21m · France, Japan
Directed by Atsushi Hirai
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
A man arrives at a public bathhouse to retrieve a forgotten item, finds an old valid ticket in his pocket, and decides to stay. A simple bath becomes a prolonged invitation to existential reflection.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Hirai achieves something rare in short form: a film that is genuinely patient, structured around duration and the accumulation of ambient detail, fully in the tradition of Kore-eda and Rohmer.
Twenty-one minutes in a Japanese bathhouse, last day of the year, found ticket as pretext for staying — that's the kind of Hirai patience that either entrances or evaporates. I'll bet on entrances.
A man stays at a Toyama bathhouse on New Year's Eve because he found an old ticket — Hirai letting the bathhouse function as a full social ecosystem while the protagonist's interiority stays formally unresolved is Kore-eda-adjacent in the best way. 21 minutes for a bath is generous and probably exactly right.
Festivals
- Cannes Film Festival 2023
- Palm Springs International ShortFest 2024