The incinerator of a waste treatment facility, where a fire blazes fiercely behind a circular window. The sound of a government official’s voice over the radio announces that the name of the era is changing. A nameless protagonist whose coworker delves into mountains of garbage. A boss abusive towards his subordinates. A bus driver asking where he should go. A woman who has lost her mother. Unable to ask for help and or to help themselves, everyone is going through their own madness.
Aki and Naoko are childhood friends who are drifting apart as adults. Immersed in her family life, Naoko now has a husband and daughter; Aki, on the other hand, remains single and is on leave from work due to a personal crisis. The plot might sound familiar but it has never been told like this. The director Kusano Natsuka stages the interactions through an actors’ table-read and, as the lines are repeated, the scenes gradually develop into on-location conversations. Moreover, she repositions the dramatic peak of the story to the beginning: Aki has murdered Naoko’s daughter.
Shiori, Yukiko, Kyoko and Sachiko continue to live each day with untold feelings inside. Unable to forget a colleague on a trip, a father who is ill, a friend who works at a store that is about to close, and a long-lost husband, each woman takes a step forward. There is a light that sometimes embraces them, calmly and gently.