©Courtesy of First Look 2025
The film written and directed by Yôko Yamanaka follows the existential plight of a young Japanese woman. Desert of Namibia — that was featured in the Quinzaine des Cinéastes at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival — delves into the sentimental and professional tribulations of a young woman in search for meaning.
21-year-old Kana (Yuumi Kawai) comes across as an utterly unaffectionate person, towards her partners, friends and her professional aspirations that stir no emotion in her. She works as a beauty therapist in a salon of laser hair removal, she is passively sucked into a passionless routine at work. Her frustration seems to be expressed in her sentimental life, where she swaps partners with cynicism, toying around with men and seeing to what extent they will accomodate her whims.
We first meet Kana in the company of a friend, that she ditches when she learns about the suicide of a common acquaintance. She doesn’t seem perturbed, she is completely indifferent to the news. Next, we see Kana in the company of boyfriend Hayashi (Daichi Kaneko), they drink wine which makes her sick on the way home, where she is taken care of by the charming and uxorious Honda (Kanichiro). At first their relationship seems one amongst siblings, until we discover that he is the official boyfriend, whereas Hayashi was the lover. The latter ends up becoming the official partner, once Kana dumps the cringing Honda. Her sudden switch from one boyfriend’s house to the next seems to nurture her thirst for adrenaline, also by picking a man who seems to be less accommodating than her previous one. However, once Hayashi succumbs to her charms she seems to lose interest once more.
Desert of Namibia (Namibia no sabaku) has a macro and micro level. The broader picture explores youth’s alienation within a vast, yet claustrophobic metropolis such as Tokyo. Whilst the specific case focuses on a young woman that we gradually will discover is affected by a mental health affliction, that is not fully explained. There is a mention of a bipolar or borderline diagnosis.
For those wondering when the protagonist flies to Namibia from her urban Tokyo lifestyle, the answer is in a fragment of a reel that she watches on her phone, while procrastinating on a sofa. The live footage of a jungle watering hole appears. One could say that it allegorically represents how her life is removed from a true contact with the world, just like the film’s title is from the story that is being portrayed. The “Desert” that is referred to could very well represent the idea of being alone in a crowd: Kana lives in a hectic metropolitan hub, where she is always surrounded by people with whom she fails to connect with emotionally.
The themes in the film are very profound, but the way the narrative plods on extensively is tiresome — which might be intentional, to stir in viewers a sense of restlessness that echoes the one of the lead character. However, it feels excessive and inconsistent in the way it conveys emotional emptiness and existential malaise. It leaves many questions unanswered. Only at the end we learn about Kana’s Chinese heritage, once more in the name of incommunicability. At this point we might make assumptions on the life struggles she has had to traverse, that forged her into the cold and ruthless young woman she has become. But it’s too late to elaborate on it all. Perhaps the sense of incompleteness that transpires in this cinematic work could be due to the fact that the film was made in haste: it was shot over the course of two weeks and edited also in a fortnight.
Many topics are shoved into the motion picture: from toxic relations to potential childhood trauma, from abortion debates to social status juxtapositions. Even the visual depiction is intellectually demanding, since it opts for a 4:3 square format. All the directorial choices seem overambitious, be that as it may, Desert of Namibia will haunt its viewers for its raw exploration of the incongruous feelings of Generation Z.
Final Grade: C+