‘Satoko Always’: A multilayered story discombobulates and delights

Shuichi Okita makes quirky, warmhearted dramedies that move as well as entertain. One standout is “Woodsman and the Rain” (2011), which hilariously skewers a disastrous indie film shoot while sympathetically depicting the father-son relationship that develops between a helpful local lumberjack and a lost young director. 

But that early masterwork looks relatively conventional compared to his latest, “Satoko Always,” with its not-always-reliable protagonists and discombobulating multilayered story. 

Based on Okita’s original script, whose three title protagonists share a first name but write it with different kanji, the film begins as a standard enough seishun eiga (teen movie) but morphs into something stranger and smarter, propelled by a daring formal ambition.