Dis­cov­er the meta genius of this rough-cut cin­e­mat­ic gem

Tet­suo (Kiy­ohiko Shibukawa) wakes up beside a would-be star­let, vain­ly attempts to have sex with her again, and then, after she leaves, pro­ceeds to mas­tur­bate to the CV that she has left with him. In Lowlife Love, the lat­est film from writer/​director Eiji Uchi­da (Great­ful Dead), there can be lit­tle doubt that Tet­suo is the ​‘lowlife’ of the title – some­thing which Tetsuo’s sis­ter Aki­na (Nana­mi Kawaka­mi) con­firms when, in this open­ing scene, she walks in on him, express­ly call­ing him ​‘gesu’ (the Japan­ese for ​‘lowlife’).

Tet­suo is a pri­apic good-for-noth­ing film­mak­er, still liv­ing at home aged 39, mooching off every­body, rip­ping off the young wannabes who attend his film class­es, tak­ing sex­u­al advan­tage of actress­es on the promise of roles that he will nev­er give them, and for­ev­er rid­ing on the back of his first indie film, the prize-win­ning The Sow, which he made over a decade ago – and whose suc­cess he has nev­er repeat­ed. Tet­suo is sur­round­ed by oth­er lowlifes, includ­ing his loy­al assis­tant Mamoru (Yoshi­hiko Hoso­da) who spends most of his time shoot­ing POV porn, and the old­er, mob-con­nect­ed pro­duc­er Kida (Den­den) who now most­ly makes straight-to-video soft­core and genre flicks. Through these char­ac­ters, Uchi­da shows us the grim under­side of Japan’s indie film­mak­ing scene, where mon­ey is always thin on the ground, every­one is exploit­ed, and dreams are cyn­i­cal­ly abused.

So much for the lowlifes, but what of the title’s love? At first it seems to come in the form of new­com­er actress Mina­mi (Maya Okano) who, by spurn­ing Tetsuo’s vio­lent sex­u­al advances, fires in him long extin­guished roman­tic feel­ings – for his next movie. ​“I’m mad about you,” Tet­suo tells Mina­mi, ​“as a woman and an actress” – and that divi­sion of desire cap­tures the way that erot­ic rela­tion­ships here are a metaphor for the col­lab­o­ra­tions and alliances involved in the film­mak­ing process itself. Much as actress Kyoko (Chi­ka Uchi­da) cal­cu­lat­ing­ly offers or with­holds sex as a way of net­work­ing with her pro­fes­sion­al col­leagues and nego­ti­at­ing future work, Tetsuo’s suc­ces­sion of one night stands reflects his loss of com­mit­ment to his craft.

On his bed­room wall, in place of a girly pin-up, Tet­suo has a poster of indie god­head John Cas­savetes, which he reg­u­lar­ly idolis­es – and as his newest Muse, what Mina­mi reawak­ens in Tet­suo is less his amorous feel­ings towards women (feel­ings which he already has in sur­feit) than his old pas­sion for filmmaking.

And where most rom-coms fol­low the for­mu­la of meet-cute, fol­lowed by obsta­cles, and cul­mi­nat­ing in rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, by the end of Lowlife Love Tet­suo will be on his knees before Mina­mi not ask­ing for her hand in mar­riage, but beg­ging her to star in his next fea­ture. For here, Tetsuo’s real love is for cin­e­ma, and as his more suc­cess­ful col­league Taku­mi Kano (Kan­ji Furu­tachi) puts it, ​“Film­mak­ing is like falling for a no good slut, huh?… But we can’t leave that slut alone, can we?”

The results, though at times a lit­tle broad, are a low-key, rough-cut metacin­e­mat­ic gem. And if Kida tells two actress­es in a bar that film­mak­ing is all about ​“cause and effect” (while feel­ing both up from behind), his words will catch up with him and his friends unex­pect­ed­ly in the final scene.

Lowlife Love is out now on Dual-For­mat DVD/Blu-ray cour­tesy of Third Win­dow Films.