Two cinemagoers use the medium to help each other in Makoto Ueda’s genre-bending comedy.
“I’m not the film, you are!”
Films about films can sometimes be a bit … self-indulgent. Don’t get me wrong, I like those Oscar darlings: Sunset Boulevard, and The Fabelmans, and The Artist. But they’re Oscar darling for a reason: they know who they’re speaking to. You Are the Film is the debut feature film by Makoto Ueda, and at first I was afraid that was what this was going to be about. I was, mercifully, wrong.
You Are the Film has two focuses: Madoka (Marika Ito,) is the first one, a playwright whose latest production isn’t going too smoothly, and who is told by the owner of the bar she frequents to check out a film in the cinema next door. She does, and the film begins – our second focus: Kazuma (Kai Inowaki), a struggling musician whose band is close to splitting. He also goes to a movie, and watches a film about a playwright called Madoka who… well, you get it.
With both leads watching each other at the cinema, the film can really begin. Once they get over their bizarre predicament, the two leads decide to help each other out, using published synopses of each other’s films to guide them along. When Madoka’s play falls apart, Kazuma finds out the reason. And when a band member steals money from some gangsters, Madoka is able to help Kazuma find him.
Things only escalate from here, and goes full Genre film, blending science fiction both within and without the reality the of the film-within-a-film-within-itself. Ueda’s script is tight and offers little space for padding or even much set-up. At a lean 70-odd minutes, the movie feels experimental: a debut feature on a tiny budget that’s more of a thesis film or proof of concept for what could easily be an expansion of the idea in the future. At its core, the movie tells us that we need to help each other: people aren’t islands struggling to solve their problems alone. An outside observer can be what we need to see things from the right perspective, and Ueda shows this in as literal a way as he can. It’s pretty great.
You Are the Film is exactly the sort of movie I set up this website to talk about. It brings me back to the days of weirdo Japanese comedies that Yosuke Fujita or even early Kitano would make. You Are the Film’s passion for its subject matter and its miniscule budget are the exact ingredients needed for this film to really stand out.
I’d love to see what Ueda does next, or if I can find some of his short films. Film often needs jolts of energy to revitalise the format, and Ueda feels like a director who can do that, with some fun meta ideas that could make comedies feel fun again. In a world post the crazy arthouse comedies of Hitsohi Matsumoto, it’s nice to see something that’s funny, weird, but accessible and enjoyably silly from begin to end.
Verdict: Taking its premise seriously enough to matter, but not so seriously that it becomes tiresome, You Are the Film wants us to not go through troubles alone. If only I knew someone who had the synopsis of my life.
You are the Film is screening as part of the Fantasia Film Festival
You are the Film (2026)
Japanese
Director: Makoto Ueda
Writer: Makoto Ueda
CAST
Marika Ito – Madoka
Kai Inowaki
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