Coming-of-age films are a genre that can easily fall into the trap of repetitiveness and stereotypes. From its cold opening Yukari Sakamoto’s debut is already stirring away from the conventional. A girl is climbing a fire escape one cold evening, determined almost as if possessed. She walks to the edge of the roof – brief pause – then jumps. 

The story takes place in an all-girls Christian boarding school, heavily inspired by European models, where a new student arrives – Anna. She instantly seems reserved, yet observant, and by the scarce dialogue with her mother it’s quickly established Anna is a troublemaker. Or is she simply misunderstood? After a bizarre situation during dancing class it’s revealed Anna has the ability to see ghosts which is at the bottom of her alienation. The story skips a year and Anna, who is still having troubles to integrate, is now roommates with Rika who is her complete opposite – popular, talented with good grades and simply admired by everyone. But when unexpectedly Rika takes her own life, the whole community is shocked and her closest friend, Shiori, struggles to find a reason behind her actions. But when Anna finds Rika’s diary, she begins to feel Rika’s spirit manifest and slowly take over her body. 

White Flowers and Fruits might be a ghost story, but it’s certainly not a horror one. Unlike the usual eerie and malicious depiction of ghosts, here they’re simply a tender presence – a melancholic relic of the past. Even the possession sequences are far from those disturbing body altering scenes we’re used to seeing. Here they rather seem like the merging of two souls and are a clever way of demonstrating how mutual understanding can nourish a grieving, lonely spirit.

Another genre-defying aspect is the use of magical realist elements like the glowing orb, representing Rika’s presence. She’s the only ghost Anna sees that is also physically visible to the audience through its light blue glow. It gives the almost detached aesthetic a dreamlike quality and uses it to gently hint at the sapphic undertones in the storyline.

The cinematography is a real standout with its prevailing light blue and green colour palette and it's actually curious how the colder and more distant some scenes appear, the closer we feel to the characters. Unlike the common close-ups usually used to express inner torment or conflict, here Sakamoto masterfully utilises the stillness of a static camera to unveil its secrets. 

Dancing is a very important element in the narrative. Usually, dancing is associated with freedom and in cinema it’s often used as an escapism for the characters or a visual method to express their repressed feelings. However, in White Flowers and Fruits dancing undergoes metamorphosis just like its characters. In the beginning of the film, Rika is performing a dancing sequence. Her face is stoic and her movements are perfect, yet almost apathetic. Later, as Anna reads Rika’s diary she finds out that Rika felt under pressure of performing well and rarely even felt joy from it. The theme of dancing as a restriction and confinement is where the strong suit of the film truly lies – in its exploration of the different types of hardship teenage girls go through caused by societal or family pressure and sometimes even self-imposed which, as seen in Sakamoto’s film, is a direct result of the first two. Throughout the film Anna multiple times tries to fit in Rika’s shoes by performing her part, but it always results in a mechanical almost robotic imitation lacking any liveliness, even when possessed by Rika, who even tries to sabotage her once. At the end Anna performs the dance one last time, but not in class and not in front of anyone else. She dances on her own at the beach, for Rika. Her movements – slightly clumsy, but carefree, demonstrates to Rika the joy of dancing again and finally liberating her.

Overall, White Flowers and Fruits is a solid debut reminiscent of Sofia Coppola's Virgin Suicides (1999) with a pinch of Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) that skillfully blends magical realism within the coming-of-age trope, exploring the fatal consequences of a young spirit in need of empathy, and its quiet, reserved energy and mysteriousness linger under your skin long after you’ve left the cinema.