J Paul Johnson
To hear their fans tell it, Exne Kedy and the Poltergeists briefly achieved a level of fame equal to The Beatles or The Rolling Stones before they flamed out and disappeared in the early 1970s. They reunited, just once, for a 1974 farewell concert. And 40 years later, their appeal continues as two teens bond over their now little-known music in the charming, slo-fi comedy-drama Plastic, written and directed by rising Japanese independent filmmaker Daisuke Miyazaki.
The film’s conceit originates with a 2021 concept album by Kensuke Ide, Strolling Planet ’74, on which he and his band transformed themselves—á la the Beatles becoming Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, into the fictional entity Exne Kedy and the Poltergeists, the album a document of their legendary farewell tour. Miyakazi, then, in Plastic, takes Ide’s aim and develops from it a fictional world in which his two teenage protagonists meet and bond over their shared and unlikely fandom. Doing so invests his film with a charming reverie that follows the two young teens as they navigate a complicated transition into young adulthood.
Ibuki (An Ogawa) is a bright, attentive, studious Nagoya schoolgirl who enjoy the company of her friends and the adoration of her parents. At school, she is successful, if seemingly without passions. She and her best friends have formed a club, but it’s a club without a purpose: they don’t craft, play, dance, or compete. Her one true passion, saved for her bedroom record player, is her love of rock music generally and one performer—Exne Kedy—in particular. It’s a passion she shares with no one else, given that the band’s heyday was some four decades in the past.
One day on her bike and listening to her favorite Exne Kedy track, Ibuki spies something she thought she’d never see: a street busker hammering out that same song on his cheap guitar. He’s not a stellar musician, but he makes up for a lack of proficiency with passion—and he’s her age, and handsome. A few days later when Ibuki runs into him again in a local record shop, the earth shakes under her feet: it’s a mild tremor, and it mirrors her own excitation.
The boy, Jun (Takuma Fujie), is a transfer student. As it turns out, he’d been tossed out of his aspiring rock band and replaced for a lack of talent and “removed” to Nagoya. Ibuki takes him in to her circle of friends—their palpable dismay at his sonic guitar attack is a comic highlight of the film—and soon the two fall in love. For a time, their romance is blissful, centered on their shared appreciation for Exne Kedy, as the two write the performer’s name in graffiti across Nagoya and continue their research into the band’s shrouded past. At one point, we’re told, their music was beamed into space in an attempt to make contact with another civilization.
Miyazaki’s depiction of the two’s tender romance, headstrong and youthful as it is, is full of charm, even as one knows a relationship based solely on a shared love for a single performer can’t be built to last. Even so, the writer-director knows well just how transcendent and inspiring great pop music can be, and Ide’s concept album make for a delightful soundtrack to their romance. One wishes it could last forever, but at some point, Jun’s obvious lack of musical talent is going to conflict directly with Ibuki’s academic aspirations, and the COVID-19 pandemic, like it did to so many relationships, forces the former lovers eve further apart. Once the lockdowns begin to lift, it seems like there’s only one thing that might reunite them: the surprise announcement of an Exne Kedy and the Poltergeists reunion.
Convincingly acted and lovingly crafted, Plastic makes for a sweet love letter to lost romance and the power of pop music, finding its origin in an unlikely place—a musician’s alter-ego—and making from it a lively, funny, film. Plastic opens for an exclusive one-week NY theatrical run at Metrograph In Theater with both Daisuke Miyazaki and Kensuke Ide in attendance. The screenings are part of the Japanese Soundtrack of Youth, a three-film series featuring Plastic alongside cult classics Shunji Iwai’s All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001) and Macoto Tezuka’s The Legend of the Stardust Brothers (1985). Plastic also stream on the Metrograph At Home platform.
