Hirokazu Kore'eda's Still Walking (Aruitemo aruitemo)

One of my high points of Thessaloniki was Hirokazu Kore’eda’s Air Doll (Kuki ningyo), a film I’d managed to miss during its screenings at this year’s Cannes and London Film Festival. I didn’t post anything on this website about it nearer the time, as Tom Mes had already written his review for Midnight Eye, but I will add my voice to the chorus of approval and say it is one of the director’s finest, maybe his best since After Life (Wandafuru raifu, 1998). I know Tom isn’t usually the world’s biggest Kore’eda fan, but personally I’m always intrigued to see what this fascinating director comes up with next, because he’s someone who is not afraid to take risks. True, his experiments don’t always come off – I’m thinking mainly about Distance here, but at the end of the day, no Kore’eda film looks like another, nor do they really seem to bare any comparison with films by other directors, and you can’t say that about many filmmakers working at the moment.

Air Doll (Kuki ningyo)

Air Doll seems particularly fresh. Based loosely on a manga by Yoshiie Goda, this tale of a sex doll who inexplicitly comes alive bears obvious comparisons with the basic story of Pinocchio, but it’s a far deeper and darker tale than that, as Nozomi attempts to learn what is means to be human in a world populated by people who seem to have long forgotten themselves. Kore’eda directs with a breathtaking simplicity that gels perfectly with the story and characters, and that seems a far remove indeed from his more characteristic explorations of cinematic form.

Still Walking

Anyway, I’m certainly glad I caught this in Greece, as not only is it one of the finest Japanese films of the year, but I’m also wondering if I’ll get a chance to see it again. There was a time when there was space in the UK film market for films like Kore’eda’s, but now I’m not so sure. Outside of festivals, none of his works since Nobody Knows (Dare mo shiranai) have circulated British cinemas, and I haven’t really had much of a chance to keep up with what he’s been up to. So I was overjoyed to hear that his previous film Still Walking (Aruitemo aruitemo), has been picked up for UK distribution by New Wave Films. I popped down to the press screening last week and it made me revise my opinions as to whether Air Doll was Kore’eda’s finest since After Life, because this too is an amazing piece.

Still Walking

Again, I’m not going to cover it in too much detail here, as this film too has been covered on Midnight Eye in a review by Roger Macy, but I just wanted to jot down a few thoughts here. Firstly, as I mentioned, Kore’eda’s films don’t bear much comparison with one another, so there’s no point judging it along the same lines as Air Doll. That said, while it is a very different film on the surface, it does explore similar territory, depicting a world in which people seem to have forgotten how to communicate with one another.

Still Walking

Still Walking’s has courted strong comparisons with the home dramas of Yasujiro Ozu, but while descriptions of modern Japanese films as “Ozu-esque” often come across as more than a little trite, here they seem particularly apt. Tokyo Story (Tokyo monogatari) is the obvious touchstone, as three generations gather for a family reunion one summer’s day at the house of a retired doctor and his wife to commemorate the death of their son, Junpei, some fifteen years before. The main difference is, that while Ozu’s bitter-sweet tale sees the older generation virtually ignored during their trip to stay with their offspring who are too wrapped up with their jobs and daily lives to spend any time together, here it is the older generation who seem completely insensitive to the feelings of the younger generation. Curmudgeonly father Kyohei spends much of the day holed up in his study, occasionally emerging to aim a provocative remark at surviving son Ryota, who is keeping his recent unemployment secret from his parents, while Kiki Kirin steals the show as the mother Toshiko, who spends the whole day cooking and plying everyone with food while tossing out barbed, hurtful asides at Ryota’s new wife, a widow with a young son. The film unfolds virtually in real time, with Toshiko’s culinary ministrations depicted with the same exhaustive detail as Saturday Morning Kitchen, her often banal babble expressing very little; what is left unsaid speaks volumes.

Still Walking

The eye for nuance and detail within the perfectly-observed mundanity of its setting, a legacy of Kore’eda’s documentary background, results in a touching, funny, and often rather tragic portrait of family life that anyone can identify with, and at times will have you squirming with recognition. Still Walking is a brilliant film that will undoubtedly get brilliant reviews. The film is playing at the British Film Institute next month on an extended run, as one of a series of films included in the season Ozu and His Influence, which will also provide a rare opportunity for viewers to see some of Ozu’s films from the 1930s. Anyway, I’m not sure to what extent it will be playing in other parts of the country, but if you can’t catch it at the BFI, then I certainly advise you look out for the DVD, because take my word for it, it’s a beautiful work that will appeal to everyone.

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