Search - Love My Life on DVD

Nice enough...

Boston Lesbian | Boston, MA USA | 08/30/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I watched this movie today. It is a good movie, not fantastic but nice enough. I agree with another reviewer who said the first part of the movie and the rest are very different, almost like another movie. The beginning of the movie is a sweet depiction of the relationship between the two twenty something year old women. In the middle it is less frothy and has more conflict and angst. I won't mention the ending; I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone.

If you are looking for steamy and graphic sex scenes you won't find that here. This movie reminds me of our lesbian movies of 10 or 20 years ago. It is more simple and innocent than the usual fare today. Knowing nothing of lesbians in Japan I don't know whether this movie is groundbreaking or usual. I wish there was an interview with the writers and directors of Love My Life and perhaps a documentary on lesbian life in Japan. It would be helpful to watch this movie in the context of GLBT life in Japan.

The extras on the DVD are few. They include deleted scenes, without subtitles and a Japanese trailer.

"

Sweet

Daitokuji31 | Black Glass | 07/31/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Eri is a serious, career oriented young woman who spends most of her time with her nose in a book studying to become a lawyer. Her younger friend Ichiko is quite a bit bubblier and fun loving, but possesses a gift for language and translation. While they could not be more different personality wise, something clicks between the two young women and they become quick friends after meeting each other at a dance club. However, this friendship is not quite the type found in such films as Kamizake Girls. Instead, Eri and Ichiko are lovers and during the time they have known each other their affection for each other has grown quite deep. However, besides a gay friend named Take, the young women have not revealed to anyone their relationship.

Ichiko takes the first step and introduces Eri to her father. She believes that because her father is a literary liberal that he will be quite open to her and Eri's relationship and she is quite right. However, she learns a bit more than she bargained for when she learns not only is her father gay, but that her deceased mother was a lesbian. Apparently her father and mother were best friends and decided to marry after both of them broke up with their significant others. They did not "love" each other in the "traditional" sense, but they wanted a child, so Ichiko was born. Eri's family is a more rigid and she is hesitant to speak out. What will become of the two lovers?

Although I have watched such films as Nakajima Takehiro's Okoge and Hashiguchi Ryosuke's A Touch of Fever and Like Grains of Sand which deal with the subject of male homosexuality. Love My Life is only the second film that I have watched on the topic of lesbianism in Japan. While the film's subject is quite promising, the execution falls pretty flat. The film opens well when it deals with issues such as "coming out" and introducing one's same sex lover to one's family, but other matters are handled rather ham-fisted such as the general repugnance felt by the general populace towards gays and lesbians. Also, the films subject matter derails quite unexpectedly somewhere in the middle of the film and I felt I was watching a completely different film. Love My Life is enjoyable, but, in my opinion, Shindo Kaze's film Love/Juice is a better film dealing with similar themes."