By Imogen Sara Smith (Film Comment)
Translator: csh
The translation was first published in "Iris"
Riding a tram on a hot summer day with the breeze blowing through an open window; playing a game with a rope in a bamboo forest; dancing in a red dress; sitting on a park bench on a leisurely afternoon, talking about Plan to go to the movies. Here are some fragments of memory taken from the lives of the recently deceased. These clips are from Hirokazu Kore-eda's emotional second film, Next Stop, Heaven (1998). The fantasy is simple yet irresistible: the film sets the scene at a bureaucratic halfway point, where those who have just died spend a week choosing a part of their lives For them, the most precious and meaningful memory, and this will become the only "record" they bring to the other side. On the other hand, such a setting is likely to make the whole story quickly become clumsy, false, or boring. But in the work of Hirokazu Koreeda, it produces a certain subtle, penetrating, human perspective that allows us to see the way people look back on their lives.
"My only duty is to describe reality as it comes to me," John Updike once wrote, "and to bring to this world what is good and what it deserves." The work of Hirokazu Kore-eda can also be summed up perfectly; his films contain a poetic, yet extremely acute eye, able to examine the details and routines of everyday life, maintaining the authenticity of the documentary format—after all, the The director made his debut with documentaries. This attention to the everyday can lead to some kind of epiphany, like the montage of the climax of Miracles (2011). The abundance of images from everyday life makes the young protagonist abandon his fantasies that lead him on a quixotic adventure in search of some kind of miracle, in order to reorganize himself Divided family. A popsicle, a thermometer, a red swimsuit, a bicycle bell, a field full of wildflowers, a coin on the ground, eaten chips and crumbs in a bag—every Each image is independent, but they all shimmer, showing an overwhelming tenderness to everyday life. The emphasis on sensory memory, coupled with the unique sense of ritual in Japanese domestic life, is arguably at the heart of Kore-eda's work. This quality permeates his dirge-like family drama "Never Stop" (2008). Food is an iconic element in these films, which shows how it is so intrinsically part of Japanese life and identity as it is to French or Italian - the nostalgic in "Never Stop" Corn tempura, creating a Rashomon-esque moment; we can't forget the junk food they stole in The Thief (2018). In "Next Station, Heaven", there are at least three selected memories, including the content of eating rice.
It was Hirokazu Koreeda's fascination with bereavement and memory that began to emerge early in his career. Before he made his first feature-length feature, The Light of Magic (1995), he also made a number of documentaries (in fact, Light of Light was a story about how a widow starts a new life). The documentary "When Memories Lost" focuses on a brain-damaged man who is unable to have new memories due to illness; he also filmed "August Days Without Him," a documentary about being infected with AIDS Videos of gay men. Many of Hirokazu Kore-eda's stories have to do with "absence": the family in "Never Stop" gathers for an annual ceremony in memory of a drowning son; while "Miracle" and "Deeper Than the Sea" (2016) Those characters in , longing to reunite separated family members. And in "The Thief," Hirokazu Kore-eda's latest Palme d'Or winning film, it took the director a long time to bring the past to the surface. But when it becomes clear, the film destroys what we know about the family, but at the same time we gain a deeper understanding of it.
As always, we get to see the routines and routines of their lives first in this film: eating and bathing, sleeping and working. The family in the film lives a marginalized, squalid, rowdy, but seemingly relatively stable life. When they adopted a little girl who had been neglected and abused by her parents, their compassion outweighed their disdain for the law. It's Hirokazu Koreeda that is often compared to Yasujiro Ozu, and the gritty, warm humanism in "The Thief's Family," this heartbreaking depiction of the poor, reminds us of that silent-era masterpiece "Tokyo House" (1935). Such films can also be traced back to No One Knows (2004), an underrated but extremely moving Hirokazu-eda film. The film tells the stories of several children who were abandoned by their own irresponsible mothers and had to fend for themselves. In this film, as in "The Thief" and "Miracle," the director points out that children can also be more mature than adults because they are less prone to indulging in fantasies or self-justification. "Nobody Knows" presents children's fear and loneliness in a claustrophobic environment through close-up close-ups of hands, feet and household objects. The film also focuses on simple, survival-oriented activities like brushing teeth, doing laundry, cooking and eating. With the exception of the eldest boy, the vast majority of children were not allowed to leave the apartment; the two youngest were packed in suitcases and "smuggled" to their new residences. When they came out of the box, it was like coming out of the womb. These small living spaces, although safe, are also a limitation; although comfortable, they make people feel cramped - just like "home" and "family" itself.
It's Hirokazu-eda's observations of human behavior, always with some sense of humor. But "The Thief" has more delightful elements than his other films—not just the idyllic episodes, like the one where the family goes to the beach together. I'm mainly referring to those tiny moments full of tenderness, especially the stories that take place between Shinyo (Sakura Ando) and Aki (Mayu Matsuoka). Nobuyoshi and her husband, Shibata Haru (Nakagawa Masaya), both feel an urgent need to play the role of parents - Shibata has always wanted Shouta (the city cypress officer) to call him Dad - but Audiences gradually discover that in the entire family of thieves, there is no blood relationship between any two people; the connection between them is actually rooted in some disturbing secret.
It was Hirokazu-eda who refused to resolve the conflicts that existed within the Shibata family. This family is built on lies and exploitation; but at the same time, it is also based on deep emotion, loyalty and even self-sacrifice. When we see the truth, everything changes, but nothing at the same time - as in "Walking On": The grandmother slyly says she already knew her husband There had been an affair before, but it had no effect on the whole family.
Even in "Next Stop, Kingdom of Heaven", the director's greatest sympathy is given to those who stopped, not those who found the answer and moved on. The former has been indulging in some kind of ambivalence, or a state of uncertainty. "Family" - Hirokazu Kore-eda's great theme - is something that barely survives, always accompanied by some lingering resentment, and the bonds that hold it together are extremely resilient. It also makes the ending of "The Thief's Family" its most powerful: the lonely child in the final scene is the most potent example of how the importance of family becomes most evident in its absence.
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