Mixing interviews, rare archival footage and film extracts, the film shows how Melville's works were impacted by what he experienced in his youth during WWII, and how it structured his whole approach to cinema, not only in its thematic but also in its aesthetics.

A sixteen year old boy, Ryo, experiences the painful ordeal of his mother being hospitalized and then dying. The boy turns to crime, but doesn't find success. He then seeks out his remarried father, but the pain still exists.

A widower who’s daughter has been murdered at high school meets the mother of the murderer by coincidence after moving to a small town in Hokkaido.

The minimalistically staged Strangers When We Meet displays similarities with Kobayashi's The Rebirth (2007) and provides a sensitive observation of a couple who, tormented by loss, blame and guilt, adhere rigidly to their daily routine. Will they ever find each other again?