Maudlin and melancholic, Sidonie in Japan (Sidonie au Japon), part of the International Narratives Section of the 67th San Francisco International Film Festival - SFFILM, turns out more of a touristy travelogue tour around Japan.

The famed, freckled French actress Isabelle Huppert, a fetching, frilly excuse to help audiences feast on the beauteous, soul stirring Shangri-La sights that the Land of the Rising Sun is benevolently bestowed with by Mother Nature.

The manner and method by which French film maker Elise Girard has constructed her latest cinematic histoire d’amour avec le Japonis she has taken the comedic tongue-in-cheek trail flippantly poking fun at the manners, morals and mien of punctiliousness Japanese in their everyday interactions and conduct.

Their ceremonial bows, their taciturn one-liners, their highly decorous deferential demeanour, their affected apologetic mannerisms as if they have slighted or affronted their revered guest, turns Sidonie in Japan, more into the league of famed English dramatist William Congreve’scomedy of manners dealing with the manners and behaviours of people soaked in sardonic satire.

Be it the deferential behaviour of the host country’s people, or the widowed author who arrives to much fete and fanfare, or for that matter the still spooky spirit of the departed husband hovering around his dear   lonesome wife, each of the episodes is done to ‘mirthful’ merry effect.

Such being the case, the film veers into frivolousness than undertake a serious study into the psyche of a person who has suffered  double whammy tragedy and how she tries to cope up with the grave enormity of her situation in a new situation under different situations and conditions. So here goes then Sidonie as conceived and presented by Elsie Girard for the larger consumption of the cinephile audiences.

Accompanied by grief and ghost, recently widowed dapper dowager writer Sidonie Perceval, yet to overcome the calamitous personal tragedy, and facing proverbial writers’ block, deplanes in Japan for a week-long of book (L‘Ombre Portee)  promotion tour, at the invitation of the publisher, the gentle and genteel Kenzo Mizoguchi.

He literally and figuratively becomes her walking shadow as he himself assertively assures “You will never be alone. I will always be with you.” Coincidentally, her latest promotional book in English means The Shadow. So much for allusions and affiliations.

In fact, he goes as much to stress further, that “I am not a piece of clothing. I am a man,” as the two discuss the sartorial styles of their respective nations. The conversation going thus: You have lovely hands, says Sidonie going on to remark that “Is that your trademark. A trademark is what characterises you. It’s what makes the person you areciting a clever in-cinema commercial branding comparison “if you wear a Lacoste polo shirt, your trademark would be a green little crocodile.”

Blimey that is precisely the ‘T’Kenzo wears on the night of their nocturnal rendezvous when they lounge in each other’s arms back in her queen size boudoir prior to her mission accomplished flight back to France after a night of blissful and blithesome physical explorations.

Faced with a marriage on the rocks on home front, the reason being “I am absent and boring” and “we hardly speak even when together,” and “it’s been a long time since we have had anything to say to each other” the publisher promoter Kenzo becomes Sindoni’s perfect personal escort.

Literally, in its beddedsense, towards the fag-end of the film. The cinematographer providing thestock snapshots of the twinning two in blissful conjugal coitus. While late husband Antoine, as the film snails on, makes his mandatory visitations a la The ghost of Banquo to his Lady love remind his lamenting “My Sido” that he is always by her side.

However, the hubby dear gives the insomniac wifey the heebie-jeebies and flighty jitters, startling and spooking her, spiriting in at will, ever playing patience, consuming her breakfast and bikkiesflirtatiously talking shop about life and living.

Mr Escort Kenzo though is bemused at the fidgety and fancy flights of Ms Writer Sidonie Perceval and when she says “Kenzo, I saw my husband in my room in flesh and blood,” quizzing “do you believe in ghosts?” he wisely quips with all the sangfroid and sanguinity at his command“in Japan they live all around us.”

As if Mr Japan Kenzo’s word was not gospel enough, you have the spirit of Antoine, validating the truism, when wifey Sidonie says she has been lately seen him at every nook and niche, stating: “That’s because we are in Japan. It’s the land of ghosts.” Touche!

Faced with an existential crisis, as also fraught with psychological trauma, a sorrow stricken Sidonie, is ridden with guilt that she escaped the accidents both times, being sole survivor.

First, which claimed her parents. Now, her husband. She seeks solace and closure to move on, find her writing mojo back, let sunshine dawn again in her life, which lands her up in the taciturn and laconic chaperon in waiting Man Friday Kenzo.

Incidentally, himself weighed in with his own fractured marital life,he conveniently cuddles up to be her eyes and ears as they crisscross across the length and breadth of Japan in constant comforting companionship that wraps up in conjugal consummation.

Yes, as Kenzo so succinctly puts in straightforward manner, “in Japan we always keep our feelings to ourselves.” And as the maiden and the man moonwalk to her hotel suite after day of hectic travelling, and Sidonie suddenly spills out “I want to make love to you,” soothingly intones the man “in Japan we don’t talk about those things we just do them.”

Elise Girard (script, dialogues & direction) turns Sidonie in Japan into a mushy, moony and moody Mills & Boons swooning sunshine romantic saga into mundane, meandering, and soporific trysts tale about loneliness, loss and longing, that becomes trite and treacly as its trundles on towards its excruciatingly expected end.

The veteran French diva Isabelle Huppert, playing her part with pitch perfect performance, is the film’s main draw, which takes on comedic mien as one watches the overtly exaggerated traditional gestures and greetings of Japan’s social etiquette and mannerisms.

The film also turns into a promotional hop on, hop off tour of Japan as the winsome twosome cozy couple zig zag across the country visiting temples, parks, graves, on cruises, cars and metro rail, before madam Sidonie emplanes back to France leaving behind her shoulder bag dangling on the Japanese man in her life.

With Élise Girard fondness for locating her feature films in Japan, since even her 2011 flick was Belleville, Tokyo (Beautiful City, Tokyo), may be one can except an encore with a sequel, what with Sidonie’s shoulder bag forgotten conveniently with kindly (gentiment) Kenzo.

Along with 2017 Drôles d’oiseaux (Strange Birds), it seems Elise Girard has completed a triad of films that focus on romance, solitude and seasons. One is reminded of films like Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Lost in Translation et al. So much for Sidonie’s saccharine sojourn in Japan.Sayonara&Arigatou Gozaimashita!

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S Viswanath is veteran Film Journalist / Critic & involved in various key capacities at many International Film Festivals circuits across the Globe also co-author of book ‘Random reflections: kaleidoscopic musings on Kannada cinema.