Fantasia XXIX Review: In I FELL IN LOVE WITH A Z-GRADE DIRECTOR IN BROOKLYN, Ugana Catches You Between The Mood And New York City

It’s not often that you come across a film that actually kind of breaks your heart a little. I mean that in a good way, and if you were to tell me that Kenichi Ugana would be the man to do it, I would’ve been like “Oh? Hmm.. okay, cool. Challenge accepted.”

Ugana had won me over a few times already in the last few years since his team first reached out to me with a screener for Visitors: Complete Edition, a film I knew nothing about from a director completely new on my radar. Just recently I’ve seen The Gesuidouz, his ode to punk rock which follows a scrappy band who try to reinvigorate themselves at a remote barn while coming up with their next great song. It’s a wily little genre bender at times and it’s as uplifting as you would expect.

To say the least, his latest, I Fell In Love With A Z-Grade Director In Brooklyn keeps things pretty consistent in terms of Ugana’s caliber behind the lens. Had my schedule been better, I might have even been able to meet up with the guy while he was here in New York City filming this movie too, but that’s neither here nor there…

Anyway, what follows is an East-meets-West love story that’s about as upbeat and vibrant as its cast. The story focuses on Shina (Ui Mihara), a fallen celebrity whose latest escapade to New York City with her boyfriend results in a rocky first day when the two breakup, only for her to suddenly lose her wallet and luggage the same evening.

Lost and sauntering into a nearby Brooklyn bar and finding her way down a bottle of burbon, Shina’s sad, drunken stupor lands her in the sights of Jack (Estevan Muñoz), a struggling underground director who is just hours away from directing his first independent film before losing his main actress. Enchanted by Shina’s looks and language barriers be damned, Jack decides to parlay with Shina, offering her a weeklong place to stay in exchange for playing the lead part in his movie, a job that she accepts not really knowing what she’s about to get into, or with whom.

To that matter, the “why” is also a mystery. When we first meet Shina, she’s already a well known actress in Tokyo, but somewhere along the way, she’s all but lost her love for acting, or even filmmaking. It gets so bad that she doesn’t even take interviews seriously, so on her first day on the set of Jack’s movie, it’s a complete crapshoot and anyone’s guess as to how it will go. All we really know from that point on is that for Jack and his Transatlantic starlet, something is going to happen, and whatever it is, regardless if it works out or not, it’s going to be magical.

This is the kind of aesthetic that comes with almost any creative endeavor, which is something that I admire on the indie front. Ugana’s film takes two complete strangers who know nothing about each other, and thrusts them into a timeline full of wonderment and jubilance, much of it imbued by Jack’s own vigor. How it rubs off on Shina overtime is also crucial to the story, underlying Ugana’s fish-out-of-water tale of self-discovery. The more time she spends with Jack and his small crew of five people working with nothing more than a small budget, short-hand props and a Hi8 camcorder, the more conflicted she is with her own definition of what a “real crew” is, and ultimately, the more Jack and his team grow on her.

Star and director eventually attain some synergy midway into the film, even though there are moments early on when you can tell that there are already some sparks in the air. The story does reach some uncertainty at times, and there are moments when the film’s allegorical person/designer handbag reference leads you to think one thing is about to happen when actually something else does; I would imagine that a longer film duration would have allowed for some more character exposition and development on that front, although Ugana’s script is quick to bring things back into alignment before credit roll.

Ugana’s use of Hi8 throughout the film extends into the final act which teeters between supposed fantasy and reality, with the finale focusing on our protagonists. Ideally, it contributes to the kind of adoring finish that I think a lot of folks pine for, and for I Fell In Love With A Z-Grade Director In Brooklyn, it just fits. I don’t know. I’m kind of just sitting here playing the movie back in my head right through the mid-credits right down to the final shot of Mihara’s face in character. Honestly, it’s a thing of beauty. All of it…

And, sorry for the “Arthur’s Theme” reference in the headline, but, not sorry.

I Fell In Love With A Z-Grade Director enjoyed its World Premiere for the 29th edition of Fantasia International Film Festival.