Photo/Illutration A scene from “Who Were We?”

“Who Were We?” directed by Tetsuya Tomina is about two lost spirits destined to wander for eternity.

The story revolves around a woman who has no memory of her past who falls in love with a man who also has amnesia. Who were they before they met? 

It is set in Sado island, a historic gold mining site in Niigata Prefecture that is a candidate for UNESCO World Heritage status.

Midori, as the woman comes to be known, is played by Nana Komatsu. She meets a man called Ao (Ryuhei Matsuda).

They start spending time together before coming to the realization they might have committed joint suicide in their former life.

Shot in standard ratio, which is nearly a square, the film features Sado island’s lush green landscapes, including Doyu no Warito, a V-shaped open-cut on a mountain top.

“I can make unreality look more convincing by just showing the two actors,” Tomina said. “But when it is shot in a (horizontally stretched) wide screen ratio, there will be extra spaces on both sides. I wanted to avoid capturing reality in these spaces.”

“Who Were We?” was produced by Tetsuya to Mina Film, a production and distribution company founded by the director and his producer wife Mina Hatanaka.

It is the second feature-length project for the company. Aside from Komatsu and Matsuda, the star-studded cast includes Shinobu Otake, Min Tanaka and Shizuka Ishibashi.

“Being the director of my second feature-length film, I felt a lot of pressure. I had a flinch ever since I had meetings with them,” Tomina said with a laugh.

In his 2013 short film “At the Last Stop Called Ghost Chimney,” the protagonist portrayed by Yukino Kishii is named Midori.

In “Blue Wind Blows,” his first feature film released in 2018, the main characters have color names such as Midori (green), Ao (blue) and Kii (yellow).

“I feel vital energy in Midori, while it also stands for death like we saw in (Alfred) Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo,’” the director added. “I like how colors have ambiguities.”

The film is currently showing nationwide.

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