This is a movie that describes a very short time in a day. Family get together. There are visitors from afar. There are also neighbors who live nearby. An old man with a candle in the wind. There are prime years in their prime. have children. There are deceased people. The film brings these characters together, spends the same amount of time in the same place, and ends.
The time of this movie starts with carrots and white radishes. The eldest daughter's hand firmly grasped the long and thick white radish and peeled it with a peeler. Mother's hand skillfully shreds the well-shaped white radish. Just such an opening scene seems to make people understand the things between mother and daughter. The eldest daughter already has two children. Before she got married, when she was a teenager, she must have been standing beside or behind her mother while she was busy working in the kitchen, chattering about what happened at school, what she wanted to buy, and occasionally about boys. When my mother said, "You can help peel the potato too", I started peeling the potato with an unskilled method, but I was scolded by my mother because the peeled skin was too thick. In the summer kitchen, the figure of a girl walking back and forth barefooted just like that.
As for my mother, she is very good at taking care of her family. All household chores are handled skillfully and flawlessly. However, things like reading a storybook to a child or spending time playing with the child can become a bit of a hassle. The evidence for this is that although the mother's cooking skills are so good, the daughter is not even very solid in the posture of peeling radishes. The mother must have felt that instead of waiting patiently for the children to help slowly, it would be easier to make the dishes quickly and quickly.
After the carrot and daikon scene, the father of the family appears. Through the glass door between the kitchen and the corridor, I saw my father walking away slowly. Even when the daughter called out to him, the father did not answer. Not even looking back. So out of the house. The sun outside the door was dazzling. Then there is my father, who greets the neighbors at the door.
From here, I also began to slowly understand about my father. Probably, a stubborn person. To say he was cold, but he wasn't, from the way he greeted his neighbors. He must hate people who are too casual. This can be felt from the way he walks and his posture. If such a person has a son, there should be conflict between father and son. His son was either very resistant to him or very afraid of him. When my son was young, he obviously loved and nurtured him so much, but his son doesn't remember those things at all. Although the family relationship cannot be called disharmony, neither his wife nor his children can achieve his ideals. However, with the growth of age, the mentality of giving up may gradually be revealed. But there is still some persistence. Sure enough, this can also be seen from the way he greets his neighbors. From the beginning of the film to the scene where my father greets the neighbors, it's about two minutes. For two minutes, nothing happened. I just saw the mother and eldest daughter in the kitchen. Behind them, the father in the corridor walked out the door, met the neighbor at the door, and had a few conversations with the neighbor.
It's just that I can think of so many things just by looking at a few scenes, a few lines, and a few actions. This effect surprised me.
These things are not deliberately stated, nor the result of my efforts to speculate. But it makes me have so many associations, why is it?
The time in the movie goes on slowly. Finally, the second son came back with his recently married partner and the boy born by his ex-husband, and the family had lunch together. The children of the eldest daughter's family took the watermelon brought back by the second son and began to play the game of watermelon. It was a sultry, sultry summer afternoon. Towards evening, the eldest daughter's family returned. Today's dinner is eel rice. In the evening, insects flew into the Buddhist hall enshrining tablets. The sound of an ambulance was heard nearby. The second son's family stayed at home. When morning came, the father, the second son, and the little boy went to see the sea together. When it was close to noon, the second son's family took the bus back.
Less than two hours, time in a quiet movie. A day spent together by the family who reunited to sweep the grave of the deceased eldest son. The people in the movie exist as if they would meet in real life.
However, if I wanted to explain what I saw, what I felt during the two hours of the movie, and who to go to, I don’t think it would take a whole day, no, a whole week to finish it.
In this way, we always understand the people and things we encounter in our daily life in this way. What kind of voice did you speak in. What kind of catchphrase do you always say? In what way do you shake your hair. What kind of food do you like. In what way do you walk.
Whether it’s people we meet for the first time or people we already know, we’ve always looked at each other intently. Is this person thinking about such a thing now? Is this how this person feels about me? Did this person grow up with this kind of education? This person is now facing such a life, right? We have always felt this way.
I didn't feel like I was watching a movie. It's been that way since the beginning of the movie. I strongly feel that the characters in the movie are like friends who are close by, if not every day, but meet occasionally, as if these people do not exist to tell stories, but just to live their lives and exists.
There are many good movies. But I haven't seen a movie like this that makes me continue to think about the characters in the play until now. After that, where did the second son find a job? Has the eldest daughter's daughter got a boyfriend? How is the work performance of the eldest daughter's husband? The broken tile in the bathroom of that house, how was it repaired after that? Is that slope still there? The breath of that summer, do those people still remember it now?
There is no suspenseful plot. There was no one special character. There's also nothing particularly educational. Just an ordinary group of people in an ordinary day.
What a miracle it is to have these ordinary days. And living is such a troublesome thing. What an interesting thing. What a sad thing it is. However, what a beautiful thing.
This kind of thing, after watching this movie, I understand. Although I thought I already understood it, I understood it even more deeply.
After the movie ended, tears fell uncontrollably, but I was not moved by a "story". Just because of the fact that we are alive, we, who cannot even grasp the context of life, just continue to live wholeheartedly. This incredible feeling touched me, and I shed tears because of this.
View more about Still Walking reviews
