Call Me Chihiro (2023), A Charming Japanese Film With Nowhere to Go

It would be a tad banal to complement Call Me Chihiro for stirring “emotion” in its viewers, as you could argue that nearly every commercial film aims to do this in one way or another. Personally, I don’t really like when I can sense anything trying to manipulate my emotions. It’s particularly unbearable when the narrative becomes a telenovela of romanticism and sentimentality. But in some cases, the emotions are more complex, or perhaps even so basic that they speak to us on a visceral, indefinable level. For me, Rikiya Imaizumi’s Call Me Chihiro (2023) provides this kind of indescribable experience, affecting the viewer with the beauty of platonic attraction, delicious food, basic human kindness, and happy detachment.

Call Me Chihiro certainly has a plot, but it is in no hurry to cross the finish line. The film tells the story of a former sex worker who takes a job at a bento shop in a small, seaside town. Though traditionally attractive, the film does not try to objectify her. Even as local men come just to say hello and tell Chihiro that she is beautiful, she dismisses them with playful indifference. 

Throughout the story, we come to learn more about Chihiro’s past, though we see very little of her time as a sex worker. In fact, the only scene depicting her former profession shows Chihiro stroking the hair of a man who is convinced that he is an alien from another planet. Chihiro comes to adopt the same philosophy, and hopes that she can find others who hail from the same planet as her. 

Much of the narrative focuses on Chihiro’s odd relationships with various locals. She bathes and gives food to a homeless man, though he quickly disappears from her life. Chihiro also becomes a friend and maternal figure to a teenage girl who struggles to make friends at home or at school, a young boy whose mother works too much to spend time with him, and a blind woman recovering in the hospital. 

There are conflicts, large and small, at various points, but the director seems uninterested in lingering on the uglier aspects of the human experience. Instead, he allows us to see the ugliness briefly, and then, with a smile and a shrug, whisks us away to something more endearing. Call Me Chihiro is what many would call a “slice-of-life” film or even a “feel-good movie,” but for me, it is much too good for those monikers.

There’s something strangely titillating and enjoyable about seeing Chihiro bounce around carelessly from one interaction to the next, but it’s difficult to put a finger on how it can make even the most cynical viewer (me) become so softhearted. Even the scenes in which she simply enjoys a bento box, taking in every bite with unbridled joy, draw out a childlike admiration for all the beautiful little things life has to offer. The chance encounters, the vivid memories, the daily hurdles — all of it looks appealing in Chihiro’s little world. 

If you look at Call Me Chihiro from a purely cinematic standpoint, it does little more than set (mostly) kind characters in a charming setting so that we can see how they interact with one another. For viewers who want a plot that drives forward with intention, this is not the film you’re looking for. But it’s this seeming indifference to the “rules” of pacing, narrative flow, and character intention that make Call Me Chihiro so interesting. You don’t need to sprint to the end when the journey is so enjoyable.

It’s also one of the few films about a sex worker that has (almost) no sex or violence. This might actually speak to why this particular film has flown under the radar and even drawn the ire of some critics. It might be a little too naive or indifferent to the real struggles of sex workers and former sex workers. Call Me Chihiro is not a gritty dive into the life of a prostitute, like Anahí Berneri’s Alanis (2017). Instead, it’s more like a childlike reimagining of how the world could and perhaps should be, even when there are plenty of problems to go around. 

Ultimately, Call Me Chihiro goes absolutely nowhere, but I mean that in the best way possible. It plods along with its little stories, giving us a glimpse into the charming small-town life of someone who shrugged off her former profession but continued to use the hard lessons she learned. In closing, Call Me Chihiro is a very pleasant and surprisingly emotional watch, even if the driver never really knows where they’re going. 

Call Me Chihiro Movie Rating: ★★★½ out of 5

If you’d like to watch Call Me Chihiro (2023), the film is currently available to stream on Netflix. For more film reviews like this one, be sure to check out the Philosophy in Film homepage!