As a perverse “thank you” to two of his directors who met their deadlines for their respective shooting schedules, producer Shinya Kawai issued Yukihiko Tsutsumi and Ryuhei Kitamura a Hitchcockian challenge referred to as the “Duel Project”: create a feature-length film that houses only two characters that takes place in less than a week. The latter produced Aragami while the former made the pitch black, hypothetical dream-come-true 2LDK (2 living rooms, a dining room, and a kitchen).
Two actresses, Nozomi (Eiko Koike) and Lana (Maho Nonami), whom an upcoming, starring role is between, anxiously awaits the next day’s phone call. The catch? The actresses are roommates and as the much dreamed about moment draws nearer, their diametrically-opposed personalities begin to wear upon one another to malicious effect.
The first commendable aspect to Tsutsumi’s film, which he scripted as well, is the manner in which he creates and sustains tension throughout. We begin with the two actresses, both recently home from the final audition and on pins and needles as a consequence, so much so that Lana is unable to restrain from vocalizing her insecurities about the part by making quips to her humble roommate, Nozomi. Of course, this culminates into the often dreamed about scenario of killing your roommate but what is ingenious is the manner in which Tsutsumi not only maintains the viewer’s anxiety, but continues to gradually build upon it. As a feather in his cap, when the duo begin to act upon their emotions, they use everything but the kitchen sink as they creatively resort to anything within reach to thwart and subdue the other en masse. This includes, but is not limited to, ketchup, ice picks, a sai, a sword, eggs, the lid off the toilet bowl, a chainsaw, bathroom cleaner–you get the picture.
It would seem easy to lapse into cliché when creating two opposed personalities yet Tsutsumi does an outstanding job in drawing his two characters, all the while keeping them plausible. Lana considers this her last-ditch effort before throwing in the towel after a decade of secondary B-movie porn roles which she achieved by sleeping with whomever she needed to in order to get even the most insignificant part. She is juxtaposed by Nozomi, who has moved from Sado Island, a rural area in Japan, in hopes that in Tokoyo she not only will jump start her acting career but will also find love, thus evading the shadow of her sister, who is settling down into the traditional role as a wife in less than a month. Tsutsumi flushes out his creations by positing the former with an excessively expensive wardrobe which she could have only paid for via prostitution atop the fact that Lana houses the guilt of an affair with a married man which resulted in the suicide of wife and the murder to his child at the hand of the distraught mother. The addendums are added to the figure of Nozomi that she is so sheltered, even when she lived in her hometown despite being an aspiring actress, that she remains a virgin as her mother calls insisting she return home to a more pragmatic position and that she abandon her idealistic dreams in Japan’s capital. (This character trait is an in-joke to those familiar with the actress in that Eiko Koike is a high-profile model in her native country.) Lastly, and the masterstroke to their roommates’ predicament, is that they are both pining over the director.
Tsutsumi’s trump card is that once he has established his respective character’s identities and initiated the pithy remarks (aided by conscious-free voiceovers) between the two, which gradually escalate in their malevolence, he shifts gears after the verbosity gives way to physical violence. After fists begin to fly, the film takes on a unrelentingly new direction as the sardonic quips of the first act undergo a metamorphosis into equally satirical, over-the-top action of Tarantino-esque intensity. Many would state that once one of the characters is electrocuted (the final blow signaled by the fuse blowing), that the resurrection of the character forgoes suspension of disbelief yet, considering the hypothetical situation that has been made manifest, this merely adds to the lunacy of what preceded the futile deathblow as the humor continues to compliment the now darkened room.
Also, though the makeup effects artist goes uncredited, the various lesions, bruises, and gaggle of swelled tissues seen throughout are arrestingly executed as I caught myself leaning forward in hopes of finding an inconsistent glare or a revealing line in the actresses’ battered faces.
As an exercise in minimalism, Yukihiko Tsutsumi does an outstanding job of utilizing what he has at his disposal with one hand tied behind his back as form follows function in the confined Japanese apartment: The viewer is unable to escape the tension which the actresses themselves would rather flee but their pride forbids. Much like Alfred Hitchcock’s self-imposed constraint in Rear Window, 2LDK profits from its handicaps instead of permitting them to hamper the story and its narration. What results is a taut, nerve-wracking exploration of what would occur if we allowed our ids to run wild when it is confronted by an annoying roommate.
-Egregious Gurnow
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