The
Kyoto-born Yuji Nakae has lived most of
his life in Okinawa, and cherishes the
islands' spiritual and cultural difference
from Japan proper. He first celebrated
Okinawa's unique identity in the episode
he directed for Pineapple Tales (shown
in the Forum a few years back) and Nabbie's
Love finds him going further down
the same road.
Carried
along by near non-stop Okinawan music,
the film centres on Grandma Nabbie's reunion
with her long-lost first love, Sun Ra.
Their original affair scandalised the
community and Sun Ra was sent into exile.
Sixty
years later he returns to reclaim his
lost love, and the reunion is seen through
the eyes of Nabbie's granddaughter, Nanako
(Naomi Nishida), who has quit a job in
Tokyo and come home.
Nakae's
bright ideas include showing the original
affair in flashback as a pastiche silent
movie in black and white with intertitles,
but the overall tone is languorously tropical.
by
Yuji
Nakae