As the title suggests, love in Japanese
cinema is very much a double-edged sword, having seen many a life destroyed by
it on the screen over the years. As such, I imagine we can expect many a moment
of over-acting, pain and struggle...
So, from one of two, "Her Love Boils
Bathwater"...
It's funny how some coincidences happen.
Just before going to watch Ryota Nakano's "Her Love Boils Bathwater"
I read Mark Schilling's review of Seijiro Koyama's "Sakura" from his
book "Contemporary Japanese Film". To start, he quote Donald Richie with
whom he watched the film: "Now that was a Japanese movie." This is a
statement that could be lodged firmly at the start of any review for Nakano's
film.
So I went there. Featuring a cast of
people you have definitely seen in other films, this is a classic Japanese
movie of a constant barrage of turmoil heaved our heroine's way, forcing her to
dig deep to overcome adversity, with a big dollop of "we can succeed if we
all pull together" spirit.
Futaba (Rie Miyazawa) is a single mother
to her sole daughter Azumi (Hana Sugisaki). Living at their now defunct public
bathhouse - the owner, her husband, having "disappeared like steam" -
she works in a bakery while Azumi struggles with bullying at school. On
learning she has terminal pancreatic cancer, she feels it's time to re-ignite
an old flame.
Having located her husband Kazuhiro (man
of hair Joe Odagiri), via a Japanese staple PI (Taro Suruga), she drags him,
and his illegitimate daughter Ayuko (Aoi Ito), back to the bathhouse to open
its doors once more. As Futaba's illness worsens, so do Azumi's school
troubles, but tears provoke strength in her daughter to overcome the bullies
and take on her share of responsibility for the bathhouse.
Planning one final road trip with the
girls to see Mount Fuji, Futaba has one final revelation for Azumi: she is not
her real mother. It is following this that Futaba's health takes a turn for the
worse, seeing out her final days in a hospital bed while her family keep the
bathhouse waters running.
In the world of "Her Love Boils
Bathwater", the turmoil that needs to be overcome seems to be that of
abandoning mothers: Ayuko has been abandoned by her mother, left with her loafing
buffoon of a father; PI Takimoto is always accompanied by his young daughter
after his wife died in childbirth; and as we discover, Azumi is not Futaba's
daughter, but the child of the deaf-mute ex-wife of Kazuhiro.
All of these young women find a surrogate
mother-figure in Futaba, showing her strength of character to help raise and
comfort them, despite, as we learn, having been abandoned by her own mother
when a young child. All this doesn't exactly paint a great image of mothers,
but also makes Miyazawa and her relationships with her fellow cast members the
strength of the film.
Nakano tried to build close relationships
between the cast during shooting, creating an almost temporary family among
them. And this works. The young "daughters" respond well to Futaba
when she's at both her most strict and caring, and grow as Futaba declines. This
is a far cry from Odagiri's performance as the seemingly apathetic Kazuhiro. He
seems to perpetually play the role of an eighteen year-old boyfriend responding
to his girlfriend's calls to meet her parents, while smoking a cigarette, but
he does this with an effortless cool; the perfect foil to Futaba's strength.
But while the acting and character
relations are strong, the Japanese movie Richie was referring to perhaps sends
this film into overkill territory. Adversity is slapped around our faces like a
wet fish, with tears thrown straight into our eyes by the bucket-load. This
somewhat detracts from the power of Futaba's struggle, with certain elements
that could have been removed. Poignancy can come a little more subtly.
When I watched Akio Kondo's"Eclair" I was perhaps somewhat naive in my conclusions. While
indentifying the over-sentimentality on display, I should have perhaps been
more aware of the staple diet of Japanese commercial cinema and its need to
tick boxes. You simply must have someone give someone a bike ride. The "all pulling together" spirit of the film's
conclusion is as cheesy as it is sickly sweet.
Put forward as Japan's 2017 Oscar submission,
this is a film that certainly represents Japanese film. The fact that it wasn't
put forward for nomination, however, reflects its overall quality.
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