New York Asian 2015 Review: TAKSU, An Erotically Charged Island Sojourn

Taksu, the second feature by actress, producer, and now director Sugino Kiki, takes its title from the Balinese concept (often associated with dance) of artistry and charisma that taps into divine, spiritual power. And though it may be going too far to say that this is what Sugino achieves with this film, the artistic ambitiousness of her efforts are very clear, and she comes up with beautiful and mesmerizing results.

Sugino, named "Muse of the Asian Indie Cinema" at the 2011 Tokyo International Film Festival, has been a frequent fixture on the festival circuit in the past few years, working with filmmakers such as Fukada Koji (Hospitalite, Au Revoir L'ete), Lim Kah Wai (Magic and Loss), Uchida Nobuteru (Odayaka), and Edmund Yeo (the short Exhalation), and Lim Tai-hyung (Two Rabbits in Osaka). These previous films that she has starred in (and often also produced), are quite diverse in terms of subject matter, cinematic style, and mood, but they share the common thread of being fascinating and artistically ambitious films that feature unique and often powerful individual voices. On the evidence of Taksu, Sugino can confidently add her own cinematic efforts to this impressive mix.

A scenario that pops up more than once in the films Sugino has appeared in involves characters on vacation, taking a break from their normal workaday existence to fully explore and indulge their inner emotional lives. Magic and Loss took place on the Hong Kong resort town of Mui Wo, while Au Revoir L'ete found its characters spending a summer at a seaside town in Japan. Similarly, Taksu is set on the Indonesian island of Bali, and the environment is instrumental into creating the dreamy and sensual mood that suffuses the film.

Taksu follows two couples who stay together on this island. Yuri (Mitsuya Yoko) and her husband Chihiro (Saito Takumi) share a house with Yuri's pregnant sister Kumi (Sugino) and her Dutch husband Luke (film critic Tom Mes). Chihiro is terminally ill with an unspecified disease, and his medical diagnosis is apparently hopeless, with perhaps the only task left to him being finding the most comfortable place to die.

Although the four of them do typical tourist activities, such as watching a gamelan dance, Chihiro's gloomy, self-pitying demeanor puts a dark shadow upon everything, and especially strains his relations with Yuri. Chihiro often blows up into angry tirades, during which he does things such as storming away from lunch gatherings, leaving an equally angry and frustrated Yuri to stew in her wake. Kumi tries her best to be a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to lean on for her sister, but she's understandably greatly distracted by her very soon impending birth.

Yuri soon drifts off from Chihiro, and to a lesser extent, from Kumi and Luke as well; except for a later scene of Kumi giving birth and a few others, Luke and Kumi figure little in the rest of the story, which concentrates more on Yuri. Yuri befriends Kimura (Takashima Hiroyuki), a gay photographer she earlier encountered photographing the gamelan dance the two couples attended. Later on, she accompanies him to a gay bar where she meets Kimura's friend Wayang (Sunny Cornelio), a local "beach boy," or gigolo. Although Wayang happens to be hanging out at a gay bar, he most definitely is not of that persuasion, as evidenced by his aggressive molestation of Yuri, before she runs off from him. The next day, Wayang, prodded by Iki (Matsuzaki Hayate), another friend of Kimura's, apologizes to Yuri. Yuri accepts the apology and becomes ever more drawn to this laid-back, happy-go-lucky guy who's the polar opposite of her depressed husband.

Taksu, scripted by Wajima Kotaro (who also wrote Kyoto Elegy, Sugino's directorial debut), favors long and lingering takes of its characters in conversation, physical action, and contemplation. Its latter passages form a study of Yuri's blossoming sexual desire, representing both an awakening to her own needs - which most likely were subsumed under the necessity of caring for her dying husband - and an escape from the burdens that this entailed. All this takes place under the sensual and spiritual backdrop of Bali itself, captured by the evocative, shimmering visuals provided by Indonesian cinematographer Sidi Saleh. Impending death and indulged sexual appetites (both in and out of marriage) ultimately give way to some kind of reconciliation, however tentative or temporary.

Sugino Kiki has firmly established herself over the past few years as a fascinating actress and all-around creative artist worth watching. With Taksu, she successfully presents herself as a formidably talented filmmaker as well.