Review Movie: It’s a Summer Film! (サマーフィルムにのって) (2021)

Barefoot (played by Ito Mariko) wanted to film a samurai movie. As luck would have it, her club's leader, the ever-lovely and popular Karin (played by Koda Mahiru), had won their yearly movie project poll by a landslide and was already geared up to shoot a dazzling high school rom-com piece for their upcoming cultural festival.

Karin's energy and enthusiasm were sweet to see—even our protagonist had to admit that—but the idea of filming a dozen repeated scenes of I love you and I love you too made Barefoot’s skin crawl with nausea. Unfortunately, she was in the minority, and no number of counterarguments she gave to change their project's genre would ever result in anything.

Seeing how dejected Barefoot was about her club's film project, Kickboard and Blue Hawaii (played respectively by Kawai Yuumi and Inori Kirara)—Barefoot's closest friends and fellow samurai movie enthusiasts—convinced her to make a movie separately from Karin's loyal group of supporters.

Scraping money and dragging school misfits as crews, Barefoot and her friends now embarked on an uphill journey of independent moviemaking, determined to make the best summer film of their life.

Your Youth Is Mine, Just for the Summer

Unlike Konaka Kazuya's Single8, which was set in 1970s Japan, Matsumoto Soushi's It's a Summer Film sat closer to our modern timeline of filmmaking. Hence, the process of film shooting, editing, and screening shown in the movie differed greatly from what I saw in Single8. We already have a better camera, drone, and a set of laptops for editing purposes.

The dedication seeping through from the characters in each scene, however, rests on a more similar nature.

Our main character, Barefoot (a nickname we still don't know the root of) moved through sequences with a fiery personality and intense love for samurai movies to create her first-ever independent film.

She knew she was lacking not only in resources but also in directing experience, but she made do with mere tenacity, encouraging her crews to also do their best for a project they're essentially dragged into.

It's infectious, the way Barefoot wanted to make the best film ever and beat Karin's “wimpish” love story. It's also heartwarming, the way she couldn't stop talking about how cool movies are and how much love she had for them.

From left to right: Blue Hawaii, Barefoot, and Kickboard rewatching their favourite samurai movie together.

The Reason I'm Making It

No story can proceed without a main character, and no movie can be made without having a worthy actor.

The first main challenge Barefoot faced while making her movie, aside from money and crew, was the main character's absence. She spent hours and days watching students in her school, trying to find the right person to cast. She already had an antagonist in mind, but the protagonist? No one at school seemed to be adequate. She wanted someone good-looking but in a mysterious kind of way, and not a single person she met matched her criteria.

However, while watching an old rerun of her favourite samurai movie in the theatre, she spotted a handsome guy crying in the front row. Seeing a potential protagonist right before her eyes, Barefoot immediately asked him to feature in his film. The guy, whose name was Rintaro (played by Kaneko Daichi), turned down her offer quickly. Refusing to give up, Barefoot spent the next few days trying to get him to say yes, even resorting to "kidnapping" until Rintaro finally relented.

Connect with the Future

There's a reason why Rintaro was reluctant to be an actor in Barefoot's film at first, and that reason stemmed from more than just a simple disinterest. On the contrary, Rintaro was probably the second most invested person in Barefoot's debut movie.

Spoiler ahead, Rintaro came from the future. He was a fan of Barefoot, who was a renowned filmmaker in his original timeline. Since Rintaro was time traveling, his existence in Barefoot's current timeline would immediately cease the moment he came back to the future, and every memory of him would be erased from Barefoot and her friends' minds. So would his role in Barefoot's debut movie.

Rintaro didn't want the movie to just disappear. But he also saw how Barefoot really needed him to get the project moving. So, he chose to participate in the movie and fulfil his love for Barefoot's works while trying to find a way to preserve the movie for the future.

Rintaro and Barefoot, watching a legendary samurai movie to find references for their own movie.

I Wouldn't Want a Hero That Didn't Try

My favourite segment from the movie, unsurprisingly, is when both Barefoot and Karin's projects come across hurdles which they couldn't solve on their own. It's when two very different directors with two very contrasting projects find that they could still work together, even if they're not making the same movie.

Seeing them working together and supporting each other's works was very uplifting for me. Karin never saw Barefoot as a competitor, and Barefoot definitely never saw Karin as a potential ally. In this arc, though, we get to see them standing on the same line, finally understanding what each other thinks about the other—and what moviemaking means for both of them.

You know, we spent the better half of It's a Summer Film seeing Karin as this shallow girl who's obsessed with rom coms. But that's simply untrue. After all, love stories are not always fake or superficial. We have main characters in love stories too—people who have their own goals and obstacles. If Barefoot loves how her favourite samurai character defeats their enemy at the end of the movie, Karin loves how her love story's protagonist persists through hurdles until they can achieve their own true love.

So, using that perspective, isn't a rom com basically an action film too? Where the characters refuse to give up on their loved ones? Where the characters keep on fighting to make sure their happiness is intact?

For Barefoot, a summer film is about samurai. For Karin, a summer film is about romance. Both can be right for different reasons. No one is more worthy than the other. We don't need to downplay other people's interests to make our own passion seem more admirable.

Barefoot and her movie crew.

Hear Other People's Story

It's a Summer Film concludes with Barefoot and crews presenting their movie at the school cultural festival. However, how they "present" the movie struck me as a bit hard to comprehend. Like, I don't understand their motivation at all 😭 I can't even explain it.

It's not bad writing or anything. It's more like the director and the screenwriter has some message in mind that I can't easily digest the meaning. However, it also seems very in character for Barefoot to do what she did at the end of the movie - changing the final scene on the spot and reenacting it live on the stage. I still don't understand why she needs to change the final scene though.

So, if any of you have watched the movie and actually understand why she did what she did, please enlighten me. I am in dire need of explanation 🤲

All in all, It's a Summer Film is quite enjoyable movie to watch. I'm not a fan of samurai movie, so there are many cultural references I don't recognize, but it's always fun to be able to pick up new things while watching a movie. It reminds me of being a student, of friendship and spending time doing what you love fiercely. It also reminds me of summer vacations, which I rarely have as an adult nowadays 😫

Nowadays I try to set aside time to work on my personal projects as much as possible, and watching this movie renewed my strength to do so. What about you? What personal projects did you have during your school days? And do you still work on them after becoming an adult?

Feel free to share your experience in the comments. Until then, see you in my next post!