Directed by Nobuhiko Ôbayashi. Written by Ikuo Sekimoto
It’s easy to imagine where a movie like His Motorbike, Her Island is conceived: university dorm room, the sun floats in on the breeze through an open window. Sprawled on his single bed is a young man, hands behind his head, and on his chest a motorcycle magazine. Its cover boasts a sleek machine that promises power, speed, and something more elemental and intoxicating.
It speaks of freedom, this machine. It’s less of a commitment than something with four wheels, because it only seats one person and that’s you. “What do you want to do, where do you want to go?” it asks this daydreaming boy and his thoughts drift to more than just adventure. It also has him imagining the many women who’ll totally dig him because he rides this very cool, very sexy crotch rocket.
That’s essentially His Motorbike, Her Island. A daydream of wooing by the vroom where a young man meets a young woman who’s just as into motorcycles as he is, only he wants to think her digging the motorcycle is more about him sitting astride it. Whatever the case may be, it’s a story of head-over-heels romance that moves like a pop song and has that giddy feel of sweeping love.
Koh (Riki Takeuchi) is a music student who delivers newspaper copy from scenes of accidents by zipping across town on his motorcycle. When he’s off the clock, he’s on the open road chasing the wind, only stopping to eat, nap, and remove his leather jacket so it doesn’t get rained on.
It’s here he comes across Miyoko (Kiwako Shiraishi) who can’t stop gushing over his bike and tee-hee-ing to a point you almost suspect she’s putting it on. A postcard becomes a phone call becomes more, but Koh begins to wonder if Miyoko’s really more about the bikes than their relationship…
His Motorbike, Her Island zips past so all you’re really feeling is the momentum in your stomach, the movie’s frumpy edges bending and blurring leaving only sensation behind. Koh and his friends, all students, don’t have anything insightful to say, and Ôbayashi wouldn’t want it any other way, filling any scene that isn’t spent on a motorcycle instead with the gawky energy of young twenty-somethings fumbling through life.
There’s not much of a story to speak of, and what there is, is boyish make-believe, making Ôbayashi’s movie a funny little ribbing of young men’s delusions when it comes to what women want. Koh tells us early on how he dreams in black and white, and from then on, Ôbayashi switches back and forth between color and monochrome, letting us in on when Koh might be exaggerating a conversation, encounter, or incident for his own daydreaming purposes.
Turns out that’s a lot, and if you can keep track, a hilarious pattern emerges of a guy who wants to look cool, feel cool, have someone attractive throw themselves at him, and maybe want them back.
With this straightforward philosophical premise, His Motorbike, Her Island is a music video of unbridled energy that’s ready to laugh at itself and whisk you along on a vibey ride of young love, simple dreams, and the belief that they’re just within reach.
Mikkel Frederiksen 