One summer, a woman from the city has a chance encounter with a man visiting his mother’s quiet seaside hometown. One winter, a scriptwriter in a slump seeks out the innkeeper who tends a remote lodge alone in snow-covered mountains. Whenever ‘Li’ recalls a film scenario she wrote a few years ago at the director’s suggestion, she thinks of travel. Carrying a memento left by her mentor professor, she abruptly leaves on a journey to break free from the confines of words. ‘Li,’ played by Shim Eun Kyung, likens the act of writing in a non-native language to ‘traveling.’ The surprise and bewilderment that comes with the unfamiliarity of travel can sometimes signal the start of a new relationship, like swimming together in a rainy sea, and at other times, trigger the playful act of catching koi from a neighborhood pond, that ends with the arrival of the police. In contrast to the summer sea scenery of the film-within-the-film, the snowy winter landscape blurs the boundaries of reality. The memories of a midsummer day’s enchantment and the dreamlike chaos of a midwinter night soon dissolve into the cold water. Miyake Sho’s Two Seasons, Two Strangers weaves together two of Tsuge Yoshiharu’s manga, Scenes from the Seaside and Mr. Ben and his Igloo, into a unique frame-story structure. Cinematographer Tsukinaga Yuta, a long-time collaborator, quietly captures the journeys of two strangers across two seasons. The understated yet compelling performances of Shim Eun Kyung and Tsutsumi Shinichi, who lead the latter half of the film, are especially noteworthy. (Karen PARK)