‘September Says’ an Observation of Subtly Balanced, Close Family Ties Going Awry

Yasuko Onda / Yomiuri Shimbun Senior Writer

10:30 JST, September 19, 2025

In the beginning of “September Says”(“Kugatsu to Shichigatsu no Shimai”), the first feature-length film directed by Ariane Labed, who also wrote the screenplay, released in Japanese theaters this month, the main characters are working to take a photo in the image of very famous sisters.

Clad in matching dresses that look like the attire worn by twin girls in “The Shining,” 15-year-old July (Mia Tharia) and her sister September (Pascale Kann), who is 10 months older, stand in front of the camera. Their mother, Sheera (Rakhee Thakrar), holds the camera as if she is Diane Arbus. It looks like the sisters are cooperating with Sheera in making her portfolio. For an additional effect, Sheera sprinkles a blood-like red paint on them.

It appears this shooting session is a routine affair for them. Their good working chemistry is pleasant, but the very first image one sees in the film brings an ominous premonition.

Based on the novel “Sisters” by British novelist Daisy Johnson, the film tells a story about two adolescent girls and their mother. It is also a story about the three women, all at different stages of their lives. The story is set in Britain and Ireland.

The daily lives of this family stand in a subtle and precarious balance. Sheera, a single mother, loves her daughters dearly while also feeling it somewhat burdensome. Her daughters are targets of bullying at school. The elder sister, who is tougher, protects her younger sister, who is more reserved, but their codependent relationship starts to change when the younger sister falls in love. Frictions start to arise between their wish to stick together and each sister’s growing ego and sexual desire.

Humans live their lives while always fluctuating between things that contradict each other. This film depicts that notion vividly and blends in everyday scenes, images and words that startle beholders, covering them with dark humor. In our society, we praise family ties as an unconditionally wonderful thing, but this may not necessarily be true. This story urges us to reconsider the situation by showing the place the excessively strong tie between the sisters brings them to. It frees viewers from the spell called common sense.

Labed, who is currently based in Athens, is an internationally acclaimed actress. Her parents hail from France, and her personal and professional partner is filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos from Greece, who is known for directing “Poor Things” and other films. It can be said that Labed has succeeded in her creative style of using dark humor as her weapon and shedding light on the real nature of people through the “Greek Weird Wave” movement led by Lanthimos. It is also terrific that some of the depictions Labed sneaks into this film, such as the girls imitating animal cries and the red paint splattering in the opening scene, appear to be homages to past works by filmmakers in the movement.