When Kunal Basu’s book of collected short stories inspires a leading movie director to make a film based on the title story, the end result is a lilting fairytale. Adapted from Basu’s novel ‘The Japanese Wife’, Aparna Sen’s new movie of the same title creates a haunting tale of love between two characters played by Rahul Bose and Chigusa Takaku. These are two people who have never seen each other but fall in love through exchanging letters and even survive a 15 year old marriage. They share a relationship filled with warmth and compassion, and their undying commitment to each other over the years is touching.Their physical absence in each other’s lives never comes in the way of their sense of belonging as a couple.

However, complications arise and their beautiful relationship is put to test when one day a young widow comes to live with her son in the house where Snehamoy (Bose’s character) stays. Soon Snehamoy finds himself torn between two women: one, a long standing intimacy devoid of domesticity — and the other, an undefined relationship that offers a comforting domesticity without any possibility of intimacy. So in the end, will it be the widow who finds her solace with Snehamoy?  Or, just as in their letters, will life finally unite Snehamoy and his Japanese pen pal as husband and wife?

If you liked the story and can’t wait to know how it ends…read the book, and then go watch the movie. That’s possibly the best way ever to enjoy both Basu’s refined prose and Aparna Sen’s artful rendition on love which can exist without consummation and togetherness that can be attained despite spatial and cultural distances. The Japanese Wife is a tribute to man-woman relationships mapped out over a landscape distanced from all accepted and recognised notions of love and marriage. It also celebrates the lost art of letter-writing by raising it to a level of unparalleled beauty in redefining relationships.