Lost And Found

Lost And Found centres around a Lost and Found office in a quiet, nondescript Japanese train station. The office is run by the withdrawn but kindly Mr Togashi, who has seemingly no other ambitions than to tend it in perpetuity, carefully nursing each object turned in to its own special place on the shelves. As the station manager says to a young new station recruit, Mr Togashi runs things around here and it is best he be left to get on with it.

Orbiting around the office are a series of eccentric and troubled characters who use the train station day in day out, the camera wandering over them for brief moments as they go about their business. The world weary Mr Soma keeps dropping by to enjoy tea in Togashi's office. A young schoolgirl picks up an old diary that a European traveller inherited from his grandfather, a blind woman loses her camera to an odd train enthusiast who hangs around the platforms and trains (why does she have camera in the first place?). All are connected to each other, even if they don't know it, through the Lost and Found office, as the objects they lose break them apart and bring them back together again through a series of random events that allow each of them to influence the other. Life at the station is all about losing and finding it seems, with each object meaning different things to different people.

Lost And Found is a quiet, gentle film that encourages reflection, but is let down somewhat by its characters being a little too oddball at times, which makes for an air of artificiality. Though slight, nevertheless it is charming with some beautiful cinematography as the station and staff endure the winter, and the film as a whole is well anchored by Shun Sugata as Togashi, the man who literally is the Lost and Found Office and understands better than most the significance each object has to its owner.