(Ame o Tsugeru Hyoryu Danchi)
Japan. 2022.
Crew
Director – Hiroyasu Ishida, Screenplay – Hiroyasu Ishida & Hayashi Mori, Producer – Koji Yamamoto, Music – Umitaro Abe. Production Company – Studio Colorido.
Drifting Home (2022)
Rating: ★★½
Plot
Kosuke was raised in the Kamonomiya building by his grandfather Yasuji, along with Natsume who was sent to stay with them because of the troubles in her parents’ marriage. Now both of them are in elementary school, while Yasuji has just passed away and the apartment complex is scheduled for demolition. Kosuke reluctantly joins some of the other school children who venture into the abandoned building in search of the ghost that is reported to be there. Instead, they find Natsume hiding in a closet. A rainstorm comes and they are startled to emerge and find the entire apartment building has been washed away to sea with them aboard. They also encounter Noppo, a strange boy who says he always lived in the building. As the apartment drifts out to sea, encountering other floating buildings, they face problems with starvation and the question of how to get home.
Drifting Home was the fifth film from the Anime studio Colorido who have also made Typhoon Noruda (2015), Burn the Witch (2020) and A Whisker Away (2020). Director Hiroyasu Ishida had previously made Penguin Highway (2018) with them.
It took me some time to get into Drifting Home. The premise of the apartment building that is suddenly set adrift at sea is an intriguing one – it feels like an animated version of something like James and the Giant Peach (1996) minus the talking insects. I kept watching the film to see how it would explain this, although it is very vague about the hows and whys of what is happening. We get to see a bunch of other buildings afloat at sea, while there is the peculiar suggestion at one point that the buildings seem to be places that exist in people’s memories.
There is also the question of who the mystery boy Noppo is where the film seems to suggest that he is some kind of embodiment of the apartment itself at various points, while it is not clear why he is sprouting foliage, what the blue energy is and what the land that he and the other building avatars go to at the end is meant to be. There are also the characters of the children who are like a bunch of Ritalin deprived kids talking in high registers all at the same time. I spent much of the film trying to work out why things were happening.
Drifting Home feels like a frustrating film. Hiroyasu Ishida does mount some nicely animated sequences during the storm, the flooding of the apartment and the scenes with the complex being towed by the Ferris Wheel. The film reaches a nice and tender ending, even if it is one that leaves explanations of the entire journey a complete mystery, maybe even it is suggested a dream. The film does feel very drawn out with its two hour runtime – it could easily have lost half-an-hour in the editing room.
Trailer here