Our Little Sister

I'll forego my typical ramblings about Kore-eda Hirokazu's works being a post-modern, new millennium equivalent of the works of Yasujiro Ozu. We've all had and dismissed that theory now. But so comes his most recent release - and inevitable Cannes nomination - 'Unimachi Diary' ('Our Little Sister').

Based on the manga of the same name, the film is about three sisters attending their estranged father's funeral, where they meet his third wife/widow, stepmother to the daughter he had with his second wife, with whom his affair led to the break-up of his first marriage, which spawned the three original sisters we previously discussed.

Meeting their younger half-sister for the first time, Sachi, the eldest and most sensible of the three, decides to immediately invite little Suzu to live with them in the family house they share in Kamakura. And life starts to turn out perfectly.

Apart from all the confusing inter-relations and paternal death, the first hour of the film is fairly easy-going stuff. The now four sisters go about their business, settling into their new scenario as Suzu acclimatises herself to her new coastal surroundings. It's when the estranged mother of the three eldest sisters arrives in town for her mother's memorial that things start to develop in terms of the social comment that Hirokazu tends to work into his films. Suddenly, Suzu becomes aware of her place as the daughter of a homewrecker; Sachi comes to terms with her fallout with her mother; party girl, Yoshino, soon realises she may need to do more in her career than just earn money for beer; and bohemian child, Chika, tries to learn how to fish.

Inevitably, everything ends up jolly.

'Our Little Sister' is a further evolution into more mainstream films for Hirokazu. Starting with 'I Wish' in 2011 and following-up with 'Likefather, Like Son', his greater exposure globally has led to his films becoming more accessible for the audience, unlike the more challenging works of his early days, such as 'Maborosi' and 'After Life'. There is a nicer, more gentle edge to this film, with more attempts at humour and a more positive and standard ending, rather than his usual, more complex compromises, as life offers no easy answers. Here, while bad things happen, the outcome seems to turn out fine.

'Easy' is probably the word to best summarise this film. The first half of the film is fairly easy-going, and the scenario is one lacking as much depth as his previous. One criticism of 'Like Father, Like Son' is that the clash of characters was designed to facilitate the story better. In 'Our Little Sister', the same could be said, with the three elder sisters having opposing personality types to show different ways of coping. The speed of the inviting of Suzu to come live with them also seems a little too simple to feel natural. Sachi's affair with a older doctor serves as an obvious plot device, making her no better than Suzu's mother, leaving it something for her to have to come to terms with.

But it's how forgiving all the women of the film seem to be towards the unseen father that seems a little too easy. Despite his affairs, he is seen as a 'kind man,' only criticised for being a little 'useless.'

'Our Little Sister' is an entertaining and enjoyable film, but confirms a more mainstream move for its director: She ain't heavy, she's our little sister, but she's alright at football, apparently.
 

Every 14 Days...(31)

Opus (Satoshi Kon)

Despite my love of all things Japanese (well, apart from the bad things), I've never been much of a manga reader. While I have dabbled here and there, I have not got through many in my time. I am, however, a fan of all things by the late Satoshi Kon. A fan of his anime, I decided to give one of his manga a try.

'Opus' is an incomplete serial he worked on in the mid-Nineties, recently re-released in a near-complete form. Perhaps somewhat appropriately, it centres around a mangaka struggling to complete his manga serial 'Resonance'.

Pressured, suffering from writer's-block and unable to put pen to paper, the lines between fiction and reality are lost, as he becomes literally consumed by his own work. Once inside, he is considered 'God' by his characters and he has to deal with the consequences of his creation. He is questioned as to the lack of detail in backgrounds leaving an incomplete world and as to why he writes his characters' deaths.

Maybe this isn't anything too original, with the creator becoming an unsuspecting god, but you do get a sense of a semi-autobiographical nature from the work, written largely before his rise as a director. This is another strong addition to his body of work, setting a theme that would be throughout his feature films.

Days to read: 12

Days per book: 14.7

Colors of the Mountain (Da Chen)

While I was doing my Master's dissertation at University - which partly featured a cultural look at China - I read Xin Ran's 'The Good Women of China'. Oh, I wish I hadn't. While others may like it, my English cynicism had me reading a book I found horribly over-sentimental, to the point where I found it difficult to read. The whole thing was far too 'tragic lives' for my liking. So, when my wife bought me Da Chen's memoirs for Christmas, maybe I was a little sceptical.

Now a celebrated flautist in the US of States, the first of Da Chen's memoirs focus on his school years in his home town of Yellow Stone in southern China, telling of his family's struggles as former landowners in Communist China and the daily abuse it brought them. Knowing the importance of family ties in Chinese culture and this being very much a family-driven affair, it can at times become a little too sentimental as he reminisces about the first fifteen-or-so years of his life. His family's past a constant burden for them, I feared this too would become a tale of a life tragic.

Luckily, however, Chen's status led him to befriend a group of street rascals, allowing for enough tales of boyhood hijinks to bring in some comedy and tales of doing those things teenage boys do to stop it becoming a little too heavy of the emotional superlatives.

This is a little of a bumpy ride, switching between boyhood pranks and family sentimentality, that can at times be good; at others be less so. But all-in-all this gives a good account of some of the difficulties that life in the second half of the Twentieth Century in China posed for people of certain backgrounds.   

Days to read: 15

Days per book: 14.7

Easily Distracted: My Autobiography (Steve Coogan)

If there's one thing that prompts immediate hatred inside my loins, it's naming your autobiography 'My Autobiography'. Public figures that have done this include Alex Ferguson and Rio Ferdinand; you know, that type. Here now comes another such memoir from a another man associated with Manchester; another man who thinks he's IT.

Maybe I'm being harsh (not on Rio Ferdinand) on Mr Steve Coogan here, however, for this is a man whom naming his autobiography 'MY Autobiography' might be something of a statement. This isn't Alan Partridge's autobiography - he's already co-written that - it's his, and you can see mild attempts to keep Partridge on the sidelines throughout, though always there.

Attempting to unearth the 'real' Steve Coogan is something that's been attempted before, and it's a bit cliché to write about how one of the country's most famous character actors struggles to find himself. Of course segments feel like they could have come from the mind of a Norwich-based radio DJ, but it is a part he's played for over two decades now, and so is part of him; this is perhaps why the book starts at the end, focusing on more recent works, such as 'Philomena' and his part in the hacking scandal.

The book then moves into his childhood - a major focus of the book - gradually building to drama college and early breaks into comedy and performing, occasionally veering here and there along the way.

He's a man that probably hasn't done things through the typical routes, perhaps to the annoyance of some around him, seeking both success and critical acclaim hand-in-hand. This isn't the best autobiography - not the deepest or most revealing - and so doesn't leave you feeling a better understanding of the man of certain mystery, though that's perhaps the role he chooses to play most when in the public eye.

Days to read: 14

Days per book: 14.7

A Brief History of Seven Killings (Marlon James)

This book is a bit of an epic. A nomination for the Man Booker Prize brought this to my consciousness; and its winning of said award prompted me to mention it enough to my wife while I saw someone reading it on a flight to Budapest to force her to buy it for me as a Christmas present. You soon discover you are one of the crowd reading this.

Telling the story of an assassination attempt on Bob Marley at his Kingston home in 1976, this book morphs into something so much more, with 'the Singer' more a symbol than an actual character throughout. The attack is placed in the context of gang violence, political turmoil - with the CIA's attempts to fend off Communism - and change in Jamaica from the Seventies to the Nineties, following the fates of the men that carried out the attempt on Marley's life.

This book is massively ambitious and clearly one that took a lot of research to build: It has many layers, many voices and, as a result, many pages. The continual changing of the narrator keeps it from dragging too much, however, and it finishes a rewarding work, if maybe a little inconsistent along the way.

But, being a book loosely themed around Bob Marley and its recent successes will mean that this is a book that is clearly 'cool' to be seen reading, as the daily readers on London's Northern Line confirmed each day.

Days to read: 37

Days per book: 14.8

Sounds of the River (Da Chen)

'Sounds of the River' is the second half of Da Chen's grandfather's verse, and the memoir of the second phase of his life, having left Yellow Stone to start University in Beijing, studying English language.

This is a slightly different time in a big city, with the Cultural Revolution now over and a more modern outlook on the world surrounding the young man. Thoughts now turn to fashions, foreign cigarettes and translating for NBA stars.

Again, the book is a little bumpy, switching between moments of humour, but then being far, far, far too joyful in his descriptions of everyone that crosses his path. Towards the end though things get all a little too much for me as his dreams of reaching America grow nearer. While you can appreciate his appreciation of his family, it perhaps is given too much emphasis on the book's conclusion, bringing a slightly disappointing end to the memoirs as a whole.

Days to read: 20

Days per book: 14.9

Sampling is Fun 6

Married to it...


...but keep her at home...

The Taste of Tea vs. Maborosi

Asian cinema, good Asian cinema, can typically be hard to come by in the UK, with increasing difficulty, despite the increasing nature of media communications and online shopping and streaming. As indeed there is greater choice available, inevitably the paradox of lack of variety seems to rise. A trend that seems will only continue in the future.

I like my Japanese cinema (well, not mine personally) and I find myself often frustrated with the lack of access to some of the better films on offer. But, with a little bit of hunting, a little extra expense and purchasing from a random stranger in a random country whom you've never met, you can get hold of some gems. Though the viewing experience may have to be less than ideal.

So, locating a Korean, Region 3 DVD copy of Katsuhito Ishii's 'The Taste of Tea'; and sourcing a Japanese (thank God for Region 2!) copy of Kore-eda Hirokazu's 'Maborosi' - both featuring English subtitles - I set about watching two films considered towards the better end of Japanese cinema over the last two decades.

One thing that interests me about both of these films is that their Japanese titles both feature the hiragana の('no'): 'Cha no aji' ('The Taste of Tea')and 'Maboroshi no hikari' ('Illusionary Light'). Both incorporating the Japanese possession particle, I thought that good enough a reason for comparison. The Japanese have noh theatre, so here's a bit of 'no' cinema...Both also star TadaNObu AsaNO.

Starting with 'The Taste of Tea', as I watched that second, we see a film that can be described by unimaginative minds as 'quirky.' Looking at the lives of the HaruNO family, each has their own little story within the film and a mini-battle they want to overcome: the young daughter keeps seeing giant versions of herself; the son struggles with the fairer sex, hoping his go skills can woo; the uncle wonders aimlessly on his visit from Tokyo; the mother tries to re-ignite her animation career; the grandpa with his unusual habits. The most ordinary member of the family is the father, regularly away at work, but acting as the straight man to keep the extraordinary bunch together.

And so is the situation in the lives of this Tochigi family, going about their strange ways each day in their sleepy town. But as the film develops, each family member unwittingly looks to another for support in overcoming their personal strife: the uncle helps the daughter with a 'crap' story from his childhood; the son practices go with his father; the grandpa poses for the mother's animation design; as well as helping out with the studio recording of the estranged brother's strange musical ambitions.

'The Taste of Tea' is a typical film about nothing, with no real plot to speak of, but more a series of scenes between the main characters. With a long running time, it could perhaps bore many, though the film has enough humour to keep entertained, with various sub-plots switching the attention so as not to make any one character become tired.

But the real story here is one of family and how they all keep each other going, however unconventional the methods may appear. The bizarre grandpa proves to be the head of the family, watching over them all in his own idiosyncratic way.

The characters are strange, the special effects are strange, yet it is somewhat of a familiar portrait of family life.

Kore-eda Hirokazu is a director that is known for his films about stranger aspects of modern family life, with abandoned children, separated siblings and half siblings and switches at birth. However, whereas Ishii's is more a view of the strength of family ties, Hirokazu looks more at the strain the unusual scenarios can put on families in the modern world.

One of his earlier films, 'Maborosi' looks at another unusual family scenario: Yumiko has a seemingly idyllic life in Osaka with her young husband - they are able to laugh and joke and look forward to the birth of their unborn child. However, unexplained and suddenly, Ikuo, her husband, commits suicide on local train tracks, leaving Yumiko's life in twilight. Re-marrying a steady widower, she moves to his small fishing hometown to live with his father and daughter.

However, Yumiko's life lacks colour, seemingly in a daydream, struggling to come to terms with the loss of her first husband and the mystery around his death. 'Maborosi', therefore, is somewhat of a bleak film, creating a feeling of numbness.

With the situation unresolved for Yumiko, Hirokazu chooses to shoot the entire film in twilight. The translation of the Japanese title, 'Imaginary Light', fits the film's tone perfectly. Similar to 'After Life', the colours of the screen are incredibly vivid and memorable, with a unique and haunting quality. In that sense, 'Maborosi' is a visual masterpiece of cinema, using colour perfectly to reflect the story.

One of the best reviews I've read of 'Maborosi' described it as a if having 'read a haiku.' This is perhaps the best way to summarise this film: it paints a perfect picture of a woman's torment at her husband's death, yet maybe lacks any sense of journey; it paints the picture of an emotion, rather than telling a story. The film's revelation at the end comes as fast and as sudden as Ikuo's death, though maybe feels somewhat cheap and easy. This is a masterclass in the use of colour in a film, though  perhaps the story and characters could be painted with a little more of that colour as well.

'The Taste of Tea' and 'Maborosi' are two films about unconventional families, though that is perhaps where the similarity ends. Both are slow films with little in the way of plot, but their outlook and style couldn't be more polemic. The joy of family life in 'The Taste of Tea's' is counteracted by the brooding mourning of 'Maborosi'.

Colour is a word important to both: 'The Taste of Tea' brilliantly creates colourful characters and anecdotes to entertain; whereas 'Maborosi' uses colour to further the tone and mood of the film. While for different reasons, both are examples of brilliant film-making in their own right...It might just depend what mood you're in, no?!