Written and directed by Joe Odagiri
Starring Akira Emoto, Ririka Kawashima, Nijiro Murakami
Unrated
Runtime: 2 hours, 17 minutes
In theaters and digitally on November 12

by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring

Rivers are a powerful symbol. They are liminal spaces, a boundary between “here” and “there,” a point of transition in the natural world. The oft-repeated maxim about no man stepping in the same river twice is as true as it was written so many years ago. Even the title They Say Nothing Stays the Same is a reflection of this, embracing the natural state of change represented by the river.

In a literal sense, this film by renowned actor Joe Odagiri is about a Japanese boatman, Toichi (Akira Emoto) ferrying local villagers and strangers back and forth across a river as a new bridge is being built nearby. Many of his passengers comment on how much more convenient the bridge will be, and how Toichi will be out of a job. As the story proceeds, he rescues a girl from the river (Ririka Kawashima), and has dreams and supernatural encounters all relating to his life as a boatman.

Much of the runtime takes the form of a contemplative pace as the days pass. Christopher Doyle’s captivating cinematography invites the viewer into this bend in the river, capturing the balance of the stillness that is Toichi’s life and constant movement of the river itself. They Say Nothing Stays the Same offers an inviting but unfamiliar landscape. The river often brims with fog, and animals, people, and spirits appear unexpectedly along its banks. This is the kind of experience where the mind wandering is baked into the concept of the film, as Toichi spends as much time waiting for customers as he does crossing the river back and forth. His home stands upon a rocky outcropping on the lower bank, and we see his meager existence over the course of seasons and in many kinds of weather. The length of time covered could be months or years, as Odagiri reinforces a sense of timelessness with this ambiguity. Every day is the same until they aren’t.

But Odagiri isn’t satiated with a sumptuous slow cinema experience either. Every so often Toichi will have a strange encounter, which increases the dreamlike feel as it goes along. One of these tonal breaks is a violent daydream in which he takes his revenge on the workers building the bridge. The most interesting of these has a villager show up in the middle of a rainy night at Toichi’s home with the body of his father, asking for help fulfilling his father’s funeral wishes. Seeing Toichi and the young girl he rescued go across the river and into the forest shows these characters from a new perspective. They help the man lay out his father’s body in the open in the woods as a tribute to the animals he had hunted while he was alive, and then return by lantern light. This episode creates further alignment between Toichi and Charon of Greek mythology, ferrying souls across the river to the next stage of life. All of them together emphasize the folkloric feeling throughout.

Throughout They Say Nothing Stays the Same, various characters offer their views on life, ranging from resigned to hopeful, from a complete lack of ettiique to deeply honorific. Odagiri seems to say all of these truths and observations can coexist. It would be a mistake to think that this is trying to say that the old ways are better–no downsides to the bridge’s construction other than Toichi’s livelihood are presented–but rather we should consider who and what is left behind as we move forward. Yes, the bridge is more convenient, but what is it separating us from? Shouldn’t we at least be aware of that?