Director’s Statement

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This film is an adaptation of one of my own plays. It takes place one night at the mansion of a married couple as a party is winding down, and the last few guests are leaving. There are only seven characters, and a single location: the mansion’s terrace. It unfolds over 90 minutes on that terrace.

Now then, I am aware that many film lovers have an allergy to films based on stage productions. If the location never changes, and the conversations are long, they lose patience. They think, “I didn’t come here to watch a play.”

“Is this only about a party?” “Does it never leave the terrace?” “Come on, nothing’s happening.” The story becomes boring.

However, something does happen. In fact, in this film, everything happens within the space of its 90 minutes.

These people - the kind of fine upstanding adults who work politely and diligently during the day as pillars of Japanese society - attend a party (an occasion to which they are not well accustomed), drink alcohol, and lavish fulsome praise on a woman’s pale white arms. At some point during this trivial conversation, they stop concealing their true selves, and expose them for all to see. Despite their modesty and reticence during daytime, they become caught up in their discussion regarding the woman’s pale white arms, and lose their ability to resist sarcasm, anger, jealousy, and desire.

Is it an exaggeration to say that “everything happens” in this film? Yes, it probably is, to a degree. Even so, “most” things do happen on this terrace - most of the things that are occurring in Japanese society today