37 Seconds

A softly-spoken and talented manga artist with cerebral palsy attempts to find her feet in Hikari’s deeply affecting drama exploring sex and disability.

Mei Kayama.

Image courtesy of Netflix.

by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Living in Tokyo, Yuma Takada (Mei Kayama) is exposed to a constant stream of images of pretty, anodyne, sexualised young women. Yuma herself still lives with her mother, but has a remarkable gift for drawing, which allows her some autonomy to navigate the city on the way to her place of work. Her mother, Kyoko (Misuzu Kanno), is frightened for her daughter’s safety, as Yuma is so vulnerable. But Yuma embraces the freedom of the streets, and reassures her mother that, “nobody has the slightest interest in me,” because Yuma is invisible and, because she has cerebral palsy, she is in a wheelchair…

The opening scenes of mother and daughter having a bath together underlines the complete reliance that Yuma has on Kyoko, who lives alone with her daughter. One might see it as a symbiotic relationship, but maybe Kyoko needs Yuma more than the other way round. And Kyoko refuses to acknowledge Yuma’s needs as a young woman, and as an independent young woman, at that. Yuma lives for manga but her business partner Sayaka (Minori Hagiwara) monopolises all the acclaim for Yuma’s artistic triumphs. Being something of an Internet personality – fashioned in the mould of the perky sexual stereotypes that Yuma draws so well – Sayaka takes all the credit for the combo’s success. She believes that having a disabled partner is not the image that they are looking for.

The role of Yuma Takada is taken by Mei Kayama, who herself has cerebral palsy and she throws herself into the part with astonishing abandon. It’s not until she moves on to sketching hentai and is befriended by workers in the sex industry – who treat her as an equal – that Yuma begins to feel a part of the larger universe. It’s her mother’s administrations that paints her into the role of the disabled victim, while her new friends from the fleshpots of Tokyo see her for what she is. A former actress and dancer herself, the writer-director Hikari exhibits extraordinary command of her performers in her feature debut, promising an auspicious career behind the camera. 37 Seconds is certainly one-of-a-kind, a courageous, compassionate drama that dares to shed light on the appetites and requirements of those so often ignored by society and, indeed, by the cinema. Illuminating her need for sexual satisfaction, Yuma explains, “we’re just like everyone else” – but only if society is ready to recognise it. We really need more films like this.

 ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Cast: Mei Kayama, Misuzu Kanno, Shunsuke Daitō, Makiko Watanabe, Haruka Imou, Minori Hagiwara. 

Dir Hikari, Pro Hikari, Peter Maez and Shin Yamaguchi, Screenplay Hikari, Ph Stephen Blahut and Tomoo Ezaki, Pro Des Takayuki Uyama, Ed Thomas A. Krueger, Music ASKA, Costumes Meg Mochizuki. 

Knockonwood/Hikari Films-Films Boutique/Netflix.
115 mins. Japan. 2019. UK Rel: 31 January 2020. US Rel: 31 January 2020. Cert. 15.