 in a tight scene as he enacts a purchase){kind=link}
I have long been familiar with Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s name as a filmmaker. However, I have to admit that I had not seen his work, despite Wife of a Spy being on my watch list since he won the Silver Lion for Best Direction at the 2020 Venice International Film Festival. I am pleased to say, that is no longer the case, and after watching Cloud, which has been selected as Japan’s submission for Best International Film at the 2025 Academy Awards, Wife of a Spy is moving to the top of my list.
Cloud drops you right into the action of reselling with Ryôsuke Yoshii (played by Masaki Suda) in a tight scene as he enacts a purchase of a lot of medical equipment. It’s clear from the dialogue in the scene he’s in a position of power because they need to sell, they try to ask if he’s giving them a fair price but he brushes them off, saying he doesn’t know what price he’ll sell the equipment for and that if they don’t sell, he’ll be the one to pay for their removal, leaving it up to them if they want to take his offer that is well below value. Though, what is value? For a capitalist, value is what someone else is willing to pay, and as a reseller, this is Ryôsuke’s bread and butter. In a scene filled with a surprising amount of tension, we watch Ryôsuke wait to see if the 30 devices he bought will sell for almost 66x what he paid for them… and they do. He is triumphant, but we are not on his side as by not even paying for the cost of materials/labour to the company he got the machines from, he likely contributed to the loss of future employment there, and he still would have been able to turn a profit.
But where is the thriller aspect? Well, after completing the sale Ryôsuke finds a dead rat waiting outside his apartment for him. This is the first clue that people are watching him and know what he’s been up to, and they don’t like him for it. But rather than pull back or stop, he wants to double down. He was only reselling part-time before but decides to do it full-time and to move out of the city, though by moving he did perhaps think he would get away from the people closing in on him. But like any good thriller, a change of scenery is just motivation for the chase.
What sets this thriller apart from other thrillers? Well probably because it’s set around capitalism so there are no “good guys,” but at the same time, Ryôsuke is not a “black hat” villain. In that first scene and a later scene with Sano (played by Daiken Okudaira) he makes his philosophy clear. He was aware of the desperation of the people in the factory and preyed upon it, but they could have still chosen to see if someone else would have bought them at a fairer price, or even tried to sell them on the secondary market like Ryôsuke did. And we learn he would’ve taken the loss if the devices didn’t sell. Or, when Sano asked about the bags he was listing, Ryôsuke said he didn’t know if they were designer or not, that he just listed them with a price but if people wouldn’t pay it, he would lower it; they decide if they thought they were real and their value, not him. In Ryôsuke’s mind, if he doesn’t know, he’s not doing anything wrong, and if people are willing to make a deal, or willing to pay the price, then it’s on them.
Giving a character this kind of philosophy makes the ending of the film richer, because what happens should make him happy but it shatters his very perception of what it means to attain capital. And that is a satisfying conclusion.
Cloud had its World Premiere Out of Competition at the 81st annual Venice International Film Festival.
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