For the Love of the Beach

“Gimme your quietest indie film.”

“No, that’s too quiet and indie.”

– Hans Mole-chan

I remember the reign not of Indie Sleaze but of Indie Twee. It’s still with us in this very room. Wes Anderson is out there making movies, and Juno (2007) is just a click away. Before Barbie (2023) there was Baghead (2008). Even Dane Cook got involved. I still remember Steve Carell’s face smashed up against a stack of pancakes at the Blockbuster.

No hoard of gentle quirk, however, can top the master. Takeshi Kitano’s A Scene at the Sea (1991) softly radiates a tranquil cool so hypnotizing you’ll come out believing in humanity (or well-refreshed after a good nap). Ready?

Shigeru (Claude Maki) is a young deaf garbageman in a coastal town. While on the rounds with an older colleague, he finds a broken surfboard and decides to learn how to surf. Despite no tether or wetsuit, no knowledge of how to ride waves, and a missing chunk of board, he doggedly pursues his goal. He no longer goes to work. His girlfriend Takako (Hiroko Oshima) follows him around, a few paces back, carrying his board, watching him lovingly, staring on as local surf bros laugh when Shigeru tumbles into the waves.

Takako is also deaf, and the film is largely silent, kept alive only by the sounds of wind and waves along with Joe Hisaishi’s wistful soundtrack. Shigeru stops doing anything else; he saves what little money he has to bargain for a cheapo board once his breaks. Slowly, begrudgingly, the beach bums and surf bros come to respect his grit. The waves and wind beat on.

But, of course, this is a Beat Takeshi movie, so there’ll be no simple success or Horatio Alger gumption-romance. Another woman gets involved. Shigeru fails to hear his name when he’s called up at an honest-to-God surfing competition. There’s never-ending melancholic treading from beach to beach and surf shop to surf shop. Jokes crop up here and there.

The old fool believes in love though, quiet, determined, beset love. Words aren’t necessary, Kitano seems to think, when you have love, love for one another, love for the wind, the sea, the sand. The world is filled with affliction, with random suffering, unplaceable anxiousness, and the accidents of birth. But is that so bad when there’s the beach? For a time, perhaps not.

A Scene at the Sea relates the beauty of the simple things, the pauses between our sentences, the poetry of our thoughts and feelings. That kind of thing doesn’t come naturally to a neurotic New Jerseyan when I see it. But the master’s spell is strong enough that even I felt myself slip into a meditative state.