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Thread: STILL WALKING (Hirokazu Koreeda 2008)

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    STILL WALKING (Hirokazu Koreeda 2008)

    Hirokazu Koreeda: STILL WALKING (2008)

    24 hours of muted family conflict

    Review by Chris Knipp

    Koreeda's new film (new last year, in festivals this year, now in US release) would be a very creditable effort, even something remarkable, if Yasujiro Ozu had never lived or made films. It's a beautifully modulated, subtle study of generations in the classic mold or a family reunion. In many ways it's a quiet gem. It's just that it invites comparison with one of the greatest Japanese directors, and in that company, it shrinks. And even compared to Koreeda's own previous work, it lacks originality.

    An adult daughter and son come to visit their parents in the country with their families, and there is an obese young man. There was a brother, Junpei, who died on this day fifteen years ago and he drowned saving this overfed guest.

    We soon become absorbed in the moment-to-moment exchanges between the old lady and her squeaky-voiced daughter as they prepare food in the kitchen. Chinami (You /Yukiko Ehara), who has this irritating voice, a former pop singer, played the irresponsible mother in Koreeda's 2004 Nobody Knows (Dare mo shiranai)), a more unusual and powerful film than this one. Perhaps she is meant to inject a comic note. Though he is "still walking," the old man, retired doctor Kyohei Yokoyama (Yoshio Harada), casts a pall all proceedings. He is withdrawn, gruff, disapproving -- particularly of Ryota, (Hiroshi Abe), whose career of art restoration doesn't seem to measure up. Understandably Ryota hides the fact that he's temporarily out of work. Ryota's new wife Yukari (Yui Natsukawa) is a young widow with a son from her previous marriage, worried that the in-laws don't yet accept her and the boy, Atsushi (Shoehi Tanaka) as family. That's not helped by the fact that Ryota's blunt mother (Kirin Kiki), explicitly contrary to tradition, seems to want to discourage her grown offspring from even having children. Ryota is one of those sons who has had the misfortune to live while his more favored sibling died too soon. We don't have to imagine what the parents think of the fat boy who was saved. The old lady even admits to Ryota that she takes cruel pleasure in his discomfort at being invited on these occasions. There are lots of unhappy survivors here; and yet, there are plenty of funny little moments that happen too. The boy Atsushi, immune from the past and not even related, sees a lot of humor in things. Koreeda makes good use of all these different points of view.

    The film creates a certain dramatic excitement by opening up what is mostly a theatrical entertainment at the beginning, oscillating between Yukari, Ryuota, and the boy traveling on the train expressing their apprehensions and doubts; the old man Kyohei taking a walk; and Chinami and her mother in the kitchen chopping and chatting. Chinami's husband Nobuo (Kazuya Takahashi) is a car salesman. He has little function in the piece other than to propose to Ryota that he buy an RV, an idea that can only cause embarasment since Ryota neither needs nor can afford a car. Chirnami, her husband and two kids are lucky because they don't matter; they don't have to be compared to the perfect, departed Junpei and found wanting.

    An important part of Still Walking is its depiction of still strong Japanese reverence toward departed relatives, a subject celebrated, also in 2008, in Yôjirô Takita's Departures . One sequence is devoted to a ceremonial visit to Junpei's grave, and the way his mother ladles water over his tombstone repeatedly, commenting that it has been a hot day, as if the stone and the lost son were one, will be echoed later in an epologue when the parents themselves have departed.

    Obviously Koreeda has put a lot of himself and his own experience into this film, without giving into to excessive emotion, maintaining on the contrary almost excessive tact. There is both sweetness and honesty here. But it remains unfortunate that this movie invites comparison through its tone and subject matter with Ozu's quiet family dramas but simply doesn't live up to that high standard. To see why, it's best just to watch Early Summer, Tokyo Story, or another of his classics to see. One thing is Ozu's film style, so distinctive (and yet self-effacing) that every camera placement is just right. Koreeda has taken a chance in limiting himself to 24 hours. Within the muted world of a conventional middle-class Japanese family that is an added limitation that he does not altogether overcome. And finally, the fact that no one in the younger generation seems to care much about what they do diminishes them and their relationship with their elders.

    There is also the matter of truth to Koreeda's own high level of previous achievement. His earlier notable feature, Maboroshi, is a strange, haunting, magical study of a widow searching for meaning after the apparent suicide of her husband. Nobody Knows, an intimate, disturbing narrative of three children left to fend for themselves by an irresponsible mother, shows an amazing ability to find metaphor in the concrete. Still Walking not only treads on ground already walked by the master, Ozu, but is otherwise a film that stylistically might have been made by a number of other directors. For all its accomplishment, not the least of which are a cluster of fine performances, Still Walking still seems like a misstep. One just expects something more interesting, more powerful, more haunting from this director than this muted, competent, quietly touching, but otherwise pedestrian work.

  2. #2
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    Re: STILL WALKING (Hirokazu Koreeda 2008)

    [QUOTE]Originally posted by Chris Knipp
    Koreeda's new film would be a very creditable effort, even something remarkable, if Yasujiro Ozu had never lived or made films. It's a beautifully modulated, subtle study of generations in the classic mold or a family reunion. In many ways it's a quiet gem. It's just that it invites comparison with one of the greatest Japanese directors, and in that company, it shrinks.

    This is blatantly unfair to Koreeda. It is one thing to reference film history in order to situate a new film within a cinematic tradition, or perhaps to give the reader who has not seen the film some idea of what to expect. It is another thing to dismiss a new film on the basis of another or others made more than 50 years ago.

    This case is not at all similar to Gus Van Sant's almost shot-for-shot remake of Psycho. Still Walking belongs in the Japanese genre shomin geki, or contemporary dramas about fairly ordinary characters. Ozu was one of several directors who excelled at this genre. Ozu is the shomin geki director best known in the West. Moreover, the theme of reunification between relatives of different generations is shared with Ozu's best known film: Tokyo Story.

    However, that is where the similarities end. Ozu had a very distinctive way of shooting. Two things in particular come to mind: 1)Placing actors in converation diagonally from each other and breaking the 180 degree rule so that sometimes when a character speaks he or she is facing the camera, and 2) A brief montage of so called pillow-shots that serve as punctuation marks between sequences. There are other particularities of his style. None of these evident in Koreeda's Still Walking. In fact, the film is shot somewhat more conventionally in a style that does not call attention to itself. And there is a wide discrepancy between the characters of Ozu's films and the characters in Still Walking. In particular, the older generation in Ozu's films is somewhat idealized. Or perhaps there are people who have achieved a greater degree of wisdom and redemption that the old couple in Still Walking who remain bitter and cruel at times. If I were to compare the Koreeda of Still Walking with a Japanese master of yesteryear, it would be to Mikio Naruse. He was also a humanist master of suble characterization but he worked within the formal conventions of the genre.

    In terms of narrative, there are two aspects I found most interesting about Still Walking:

    1) the film creates a contrast between the relationship that mother and daughter have been able to forge based perhaps on their shared domesticity and motherhood, and the estrangement between Ryota and Kyohei. It is much more difficult for the men to work out their issues and develop a workable adult relationship.

    2) the film creates a parallel between Kyohei being able to love Ryota as a son in the shadow of an older, deceased one and the boy Atsushi being able to accept Ryota as a father figure in the shadow of his biological, deceased one.
    Last edited by oscar jubis; 11-15-2009 at 10:07 AM.

  3. #3
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    Short answer: I do not agree with you. I'm sure Koreeda is not breaking new ground here. Koreeda's NOBODY KNOWS was more original and memorable. This one doesn't stay with you because it has little original to say and is not original in style. Coming after Korreda's previous films, which were rather unique, it is a disappointment. I think this film has been critically overrated because of its "serious" and "mature" subject matter and thoughtful content. But those don't make it a great film, and comparison with great films will show that. Detailed comparison specifics with Ozu's style is pointless; everybody knows them. Not a parallel to van Sant's redo of PSHCHO, irrelevant comparison. I thought I made it clear this was not in the Ozu style, but its view of generations of a Japanese family at a family event invited the comparison. The style is not original and neither is the material. Yes, there are comparisons and parallels among family members; otherwise it would be about nothing. I do not say that. The outlook is more contemporary to be sure.

    Sorry, but the films of today do have to live up to the standards of the past, 50 years ago or any amount of time ago. If not, they aren't worthy of high praise. But as I said, and you quoted me, this would be a very creditable effort, were it not for Ozu (and other great Japanese directors who've dealt with generations and family life in a more profound and distinctive way). The mere fact that this isn't a carbon copy of Ozu, which I never said, doesn't invalidate my point. But the US critical reaction has been highly admiring. I find it hard to see how you can find an evaluation like mine, "It's a beautifully modulated, subtle study of generations in the classic mold or a family reunion. In many ways it's a quiet gem," is "highly unfair to Koreeda." I should think it was quite fair.

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