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Visual artist Yoichi Higashi has directed and cowritten an utterly entrancing film memoir of his childhood as an identical twin in a tiny village in late 1940s Japan. Higashi was lucky enough to find two extraordinary twins, Keigo and Shogo Matsuyama, to play himself and his brother, and the movie captures the essence of twinness: these little boys go everywhere and do everything together--paint, fish, hunt birds. They even dream parallel dreams and wet the bed in tandem. Indulging in the special mischief of twins, they delight in deliberately deceiving others as to who is who. When they fight, their frustration escalates to a hilarious pitch; to battle with your twin is almost to battle with yourself. Twinhood magically insulates the boys from punishment (their mother can't bear to scold them), but it also attracts dark enchantments. Now and again, a wind kicks up, and an air of the supernatural blows through the film. Three old witches visit minor ailments--tonsillitis, myopia--upon the brothers; a demon tries to drown one boy. The film is never too precious or cloying; it creates its own reality in every little detail, one which embraces humor, sadness, mysticism, even a touch of wholesome, Japanese-style sexuality. It also evokes a sweet nostalgia for times gone by. Higashi says, "Now the village exists only in our drawings." Happily for us, it lives on in this wonderful film as well. --Laura Mirsky
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