Climbers High, The

If you read something by Yokoyami, you probably know that it would not be wise to cling too much to an attractive storyline in the form of a film about "one week after the worst air disaster at that time with an unclear cause, the procedural view of local newspapers combined with climbing because these aspects only form a framework and, in fact, the author has zero interest in them. Since he is interested in a Japanese society that is revealed through the micro space of the local newspaper where the main "helpful and obsequious" but in fact “wannabe" rebellious character of Yuuki (not) tilting at windmills in a form of bureaucracy, domestic political affairs and unwritten rules (not only) inside the newspaper. And that's all. Yokoyama's books are driven by the characters, not by the plot. The same could be said about this adaptation. The result is a slow and sluggish movie (I don´t mean it in a negative way), which is not intended to please non-Japanese viewers. The problem is that although it is clear what role the story line plays in the book after seventeen years, it´s not clear in the movie. It is not that kind of a story line that would give the cold procedure an emotional touch. In fact, it´s quite the opposite. About 30-minute long footage of this story lines is fragmented throughout the whole movie and is clearly not needed. (04/30/2018)