Nagi Notes , writer-director Koji Fukada’s latest, offers a thoughtfully modulated tribute to the communal coziness, haphazard beauty and organic shape of rural life in contemporary Japan. That all comes filtered through the eyes of two creative women, sculptor Yoriko (Takako Matsu) and her latest model Yuri (Shizuka Ishibashi), an architect from Tokyo, who reconnect at Yoriko’s place in the Japanese hinterlands. (Yuri used to be married to Yoriko’s brother.)

At the same time, through storylines that explore LGBTQ+ identity with a frankness that’s rare in Japanese cinema, this inclusive drama doesn’t sugarcoat how stifling, even soul-crushing, villages like the titular town of Nagi can be when traditional values are practically synonymous with menacing conformity.…