Writer-director Thessa Meijer intriguing short film The Walking Fish starts with a dreamy tone, reminiscent of a fable. One day by the sea, a young boy with his grandfather finds an unusual amphibian, a fish that seems to walk on its fins. The mutsugoru, the grandfather explains, started to evolve, then reached a point where it felt good enough and stopped. Enchanted, the boy takes the creature home, where its curiosity and ambition spur it to transform into a human being and try life on land. But at what cost?
Inspired by Meijer’s residency in Japan, The Walking Fish weaves a tale of self-acceptance around this former mudskipper who grows from a young girl into a woman, learning to walk, eat, and breathe, despite her physiology. The film also interviews several people documentary-style about her life along the way.
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Mutsumi (played by Koume Hiwatari as a child and Mado Karasumori as an adult) at first seems content with Yori (Shogo Amo), who as a boy (Yuito Oshima) found her and brought her home. She lives with him and his family, spending lots of time in the bath to keep her skin moist. Yet she grows restless and heads off one day into the wider world. She meets a roommate (Ayaka Takezaki) and later a boyfriend, Shogo (Yuki Fujisawa), whose recollections are both humorous and poignant. (Dining out on sushi doesn’t go well when another patron orders the mutsugoru, for instance.)
Mutsumi throws herself into various activities, becoming the best swimmer at the pool and a diligent exerciser whose endurance Shogo finds sexy. She also becomes a good cook and a dedicated worker on an assembly line. Yet nothing seems to hold her interest for long.
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Meijer (The Day My House Fell) and cinematographer Myrthe Mosterman (Goud) maintain the magical realism throughout with the help of a fine cast. Making her film debut, Karasumori doesn’t have many lines as Mutsumi, but her expressions convey her eagerness, her drive, and her frustration, as if she can’t quite figure out what makes humans tick. Her roommate is supportive yet amusingly catty, relishing when Mutsumi’s skin flakes. Shogo genuinely seems to love her, sobbing over what more he could have done to make her happy.
Mutsumi eventually finds peace but not before making viewers ponder what we’re striving for in our own lives, what we consider good enough. Yori, for one, wishes she could have seen what he did by the water as a child: that he liked her just fine as she was.
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