The complex love story of Atsuro Watabe's "Kotoba no Nai Fuyu (Echo of Silence)"

by Chris MaGee

Tokyograph has word of the directorial debut from actor Atsuro Watabe who's starred in "Inugami", Takashi Miike's segment from "Three Extremes", "Box" and Sion Sono's upcoming film "Love Exposure". His film "Kotoba no Nai Fuyu (Echo of Silence)" will be featured in competition at this year's Tokyo International Film Festival.

The film is set in the snowy north country of Hokkaido and tells the story of a mute man (played by Watabe himself) who falls in love with a woman (played by Saki Takaoka) who has lost her memory after a horse riding accident. Relationships can have some obstacles just out of the gate, but this is some serious stuff. The two actors have apparently worked closely on other projects before and as the shoot for "Kotoba no Nai Fuyu" was very improvisational it was this familiarity that was the deciding factor to Watabe casting Takaoka as the woman without a past.

This definitely looks like an art film with a capital "A", but intriguing nonetheless. To get all the details on "Kotoba no Nai Fuyu" check out its official site which has a trailer for the film and, unlike so many Japanese films, actually has an English language option.