There is a Stone

Directed by Tatsunari Ota

Berlinale Top 3 (2/3)

Japan 2022

As you might’ve guessed by now, I love slow cinema. I’ve written about it before and, you guessed it, will do again in the near future. It is a genre of cinema that fascinates me to no end, a meditative state of cinematic sounds, images and shorthand. And so, it’s no surprise that at least one of these movies has made it into my Berlinale Top 3.

There Is a Stone is an epitome to the sweet nothingness of life. Whereas the movies of this genre I’ve written about before utilized their slowness for a distinct purpose (human connection, exploration of time and space, etc.), this one seems actively and entirely devoid of purpose, and achieves the warmest and fuzziest results you can imagine.

We open on a static shot of an arid stony landscape. The dry grass is swaying in the wind, the sunlight is all-consuming and harsh, it’s going to be a hot day. A girl comes up the hill and into view and looks around. When she doesn’t seem to find what she’s looking for, she spots a local and asks him whether there is anything of note in the area, yes, she’s already seen the ruins, anything else? The local man seems genuinely baffled by the idea of “interesting stuff”, and the girl apologizes profusely and wanders away (a little too quickly).

After recovering from the shock of being asked a question (I’m with you, dude!) the guy offers to bring the girl to the train station in his car. We learn that she’s a student from Tokyo on a school break, traveling through nearby towns to look at ruins and other interesting stuff. He is impressed. I am, too.

At the train station, she discovers that the train to Tokyo doesn’t leave until the evening, and so decides to pass the time, somehow. First she’s invited to play soccer with some kids (incidentally it’s the second Japanese slow movie that has adults interacting with children in a weird way. What gives, Japan?), but they wander away to their homes as soon as our girl gets into the game (rude!).

After some wandering about, she sees a guy skipping rocks on the river and watches him, until he notices and, thinking that she said something, nonchalantly crosses the river to get to her. This is one of the first small charming moments between our protagonists. He tries to teach her to skip stones, but she doesn’t succeed, and, when she tries to leave, he kind of follows her. Like a puppy. She finds a cool rock, he loses it and vows to find it. They explore the river shore, play with a huge stick and build rock pyramids together.

As the sun slowly goes down and the first hints of an evening breeze start to envelop the river, we feel their play date naturally wind down. Trying to prolong it leads to conflict, for example, as they try to get to the place he lost her rock, he wants to press on, but she, obviously tired, does not. They fight (kind of) and go their separate ways.

The entire movie is shot in natural lighting on a bright summer day, so we get hard sunlight in the morning and noon when they meet, and we follow them through the day with the onset of golden light in the late afternoon, and finally the blue hour where they part. Just like the light and nature in general, the river is a constant throughout the entirety of their short-lived friendship. It’s always front and center in every shot, where the characters wander in and out of frame, without the camera following them. In general, the camera just seems to “hang around”, not particularly interested in tight cinematography or artful shots, acting as the third friend in their little group.

I don’t know, dear reader, how your summer holidays looked as a kid, but I distinctly remember mine (WARNING: old people reminiscing ahead).

I spent my summers at my grandparents’ house in the country side (I swear, it wasn’t as fancy as it sounds). It was situated in a tiny village, where, most of the days, there was not much to do, except tending to the garden or digging for potatoes (fun times). So, after the first couple of days, when the potatoes were dug and the strawberry fields plundered, me and my cousin just wandered around the village, the nearby woods and the lake (which was, probably, more like a pond).

During our wanderings, we would often pick up any other kid that found themselves in our sleepy village via parents, grandparents, etc. and we’d roam the surroundings together for a while. There was the tentative bond of city kids being thrown into the country side. Everything was exciting and new. We would play with huge sticks we found in the woods, make “plates and pots” out of the clay from the pond, or bug the cows from the surrounding farmsteads. Most of the time, we wouldn’t catch the other kid’s name at the end of  our adventurous day, and then they would kind of fade into their own life and potato digging.

At the end of There Is a Stone, the girl tries to go home, but her phone dies. She wanders the streets of the empty town, searching for some sign of life, and ends up at a fuel station, which happens to be open. Inside there is a couch and a wall socket, so she hooks up her phone and falls asleep on the couch.

Meanwhile, the man returns home and reminisces about the day in his diary.

“Went to river after work to skip stones. Getting better at it. Met a girl at the river. Did’t catch her name. Lost her stone. Played with a stick. Made a stone pyramid. Will look for stone tomorrow.”

This is it. Summer, a fleeting friendship, seemingly unimportant things are suddenly the most interesting you’ve ever seen. You meet, you part. Sundown, sleep, repeat.

There Is a Stone is an incredibly charming movie with the power to instill a sense of summer adventure into the most crusty of hearts.

Pick one. I dare you!