The Wandering Moon (流浪の月) on opening day

"The Wandering Moon" (流浪の月) opened in Japan on May 13, 2022. The movie is based on a novel with the same name by Nagisa Yuu (凪良ゆう), who is better known for her BL works. On opening day, there was an event where the cast and director came on stage to talk about the movie, with one session in the afternoon and another in the evening. Both events were going to be broadcast live to cinemas nationwide in Japan, so I got myself a ticket for the evening show and made my way to the cinema in the pouring rain.

 

(Note: After the short summary below, there will be spoilers.)

A summary of the story: Sarasa (played by Hirose Suzu) was 9 years old when she agreed to go home with a stranger, 19-year-old Fumi (played by Matsuzaka Tori). After living together for two months, Fumi was arrested by the police for kidnapping when they were on an outing. 15 years later, Sarasa is living with her boyfriend, Ryo (played by Yokohama Ryusei) when she bumped into Fumi again, who is now running a cafe and has a girlfriend, Tani-san (played by Tabe Mikako).

In preparation for this movie, I actually blazed through the novel that it is based on. I managed to finish the novel while sitting in the cinema waiting... 😅 And I am glad I did. A lot of the story is about the inner struggles of the characters, and while the main cast are great actors, the director doesn't use the "inner voice" thing to voice those thoughts and there are just some things that are hard to express through actions and facial expressions.

 

While "The Last 10 Years" was sad, the story "The Wandering Moon" is heart wrenching. It is about how hopeless things can be. How deep into despair one can plunge.

 

For a start, although Sarasa was living with Fumi for two months, and everyone thinks he is a pedophile who kidnapped a young girl and did all kinds of disgusting things to her, the truth is that Fumi never molested Sarasa. Instead, he gave her a safe place to stay and be herself, at a time when Sarasa was living with her aunt (her father had died, and her mother had ran off with someone else) and she was actually being molested by her teenage cousin.

 

This is one key theme of the movie: the fact can be different from the truth. No matter what Sarasa said, everyone thought Fumi had molested her. Yes, the fact is that Fumi and Sarasa had lived together for two months, they are not related, Fumi is not her guardian. But people, based on their own imagination, filled in the blank areas around the facts. "Sarasa was brainwashed by Fumi, which is why she kept screaming for Fumi when the police came to arrest him." "Fumi is a pedophile kidnapper who brought home a 9-year-old girl and did all kinds of indecent things to that poor girl during their two months together."

The truth, though, cannot be further from that. To Sarasa, Fumi gave her a safe place at a time when she was being abused at home. To Fumi, Sarasa showed that he didn't need to live a "normal" life, that it is okay to be different and to do things that is off the "normal track" that his mother had always expected him to live. This created a bond between the two of them which cannot be easily given a label. Sarasa wants to be with Fumi because she feels safe by his side. Fumi wants to be around Sarasa because he feels he doesn't need to try and be the "normal" that his mother expects. (He cannot be "normal" partially because he suffers from a medical condition.)

In the end, Fumi was sent into a juvenile facility (adulthood being 20 years old back then) and even after 15 years, Sarasa has to live with the label that society gave her: victim of a pedophile who kidnapped her for two months. Meanwhile, Fumi has to live with the label of pedophile kidnapper, even though he had already served his time (and actually didn't do anything indecent). This is another theme of the movie: the labels that society place on people can haunt them for life.

Everywhere she goes, Sarasa is known as "the 9-year-old victim of a pedophile kidnapping". When she tries to explain that Fumi is a nice person who didn't do her any harm, people label her as suffering from Stockholm syndrome. No matter what she does, she just cannot rid herself of society's label; a quick search on the Internet will show her name and other details about the case, including video footage of her being dragged away from Fumi when he was arrested.

Similarly, for Fumi, he can never clear his label of being "the pedophile who kidnapped a 9-year-old girl for two months". Even though he has already served his time, and the truth is, he never did anything indecent. But everywhere he goes, people remember him as "the pedophile, Saeki Fumi". He cannot find employment, and eventually started to run his own cafe. But that also came to an end when the jealous Ryo posted photos of Fumi on an Internet site, doxxing him.

Sarasa and Fumi just want to be together. The truth is that there is nothing wrong in the bond between them. But the labels of society keep haunting them. "It is wrong for the victim to be with the perpetrator." "He totally brainwashed her." "Wake up! You must break free from his claws!" (In the novel, Ryo was a much more hateful character and did a lot of mean and cruel things to Sarasa. I guess the director decided to tone down that part a bit so that he doesn't get bashed for making handsome Yokohama Ryusei portray such a villain. Also, the agony caused by society's labels on Sarasa and Fumi was much more devastating than the movie, but if the director had stayed true to the novel, I think we will all lose hope in society... 😅)

There is no escape from society's labels for Sarasa and Fumi. The movie made it that clear. In a situation where there is no hope that the truth will ever be believed, the eventual road the two decided to take--we will just be together, and when we get doxxed, we will just move to another place and start again--seemed so hopeful even though it is really just a pittance. But when you are at the bottom of a well, having a bucket to stand on and keep breathing is better than drowning.

Link to post on the cast event