A documentary that traces the story of the (in)famous "Yokohama Mary". A postwar prostitute who ended up living on the streets of Yokohama and became quite the celebrity to boot. Our virgin director here is Japan's Takayuki Nakamura. You can tell this is his first film outing. Mary's story is told through several "talking heads", all of whom knew Mary at somepoint or other: her hairdresser, a chanson singer, a bordello owner, a photographer. And Mary's story is interesting, yes. I just wish - (spoiler, take note) since she is still alive, we filmed everything from her perspective. Nakamura, I know, is keen to build the suspense and the story and uses the chanson-singer-dying-of-cancer to ignite the search for Mary (so s/he can perform for Mary one last time). It's (yawn) all fine and well except we never really - despite the talking head testimonials - come to understand who Mary is and why she lived the life she did. A missed opportunity me thinks.
My rating 4 out of 10.
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