Films about jazz musicians tend to fall into two categories: ones that focus on personal drama at the expense of the music and ones that don’t get made. That’s why Yuzuru Tachikawa’s anime “Blue Giant,” released earlier this year, was such an anomaly. Though its story — based on a manga series by Shinichi Ishizuka — was laughably simplistic, it got deeper into the music than most films, documentaries included, ever manage.
It’s hard not to think of the movie while watching Masanori Tominaga’s “Between the White and Black Keys,” an unorthodox biopic freely adapted from the 2008 memoir of the same name by jazz pianist Hiroshi Minami. Set over the course of an eventful New Year’s Eve in Tokyo’s Ginza district in 1988, it’s a playful and peculiar film with a Mobius strip narrative that allows its protagonist to cross paths with his older self.
Sosuke Ikematsu stars as what initially appear to be two different pianists, both working the Ginza circuit. The younger Hiroshi is a classically trained musician with dreams of making it in the jazz world. Following the advice of his piano teacher — who tells him he needs to be more “nonchalant,” while dropping cigarette ash over the keyboard — he has been working a thankless gig at a cabaret club.