Recently Viewed: Monster (2023)

Like Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster revolves around the theme of conflicting perspectives, adopting a triptych structure in order to explore the convoluted events of its deceptively simple plot through the eyes of three distinctly different protagonists: an aloof adolescent boy, his fiercely protective single mother, and a naïve schoolteacher. Each character’s inherently biased point-of-view shapes (and distorts) how they perceive the morally complex dilemma at the heart of the story; consequently, the audience’s sympathies vacillate dramatically as new information is gradually revealed. The director, however, intentionally leaves several significant questions unresolved and open to interpretation; by the time the end credits roll, there are still gaps in the narrative—even outright inconsistencies, contradictions, and discrepancies. Thus, the puzzle remains fundamentally fractured, fragmented, and incomplete.

And that ambiguity elevates and enriches the film. “Truth,” after all, is ultimately subjective—as insubstantial and illusory as the shimmering reflection of raindrops trickling down a windowpane. Monster embraces the uncertainty of life itself—and is all the more sublimely beautiful for it.

The Poetry of Death: Jisei and Kore-eda’s After Life

Recently, I read an exquisitely curated collection of jisei—Japanese death poetry. It was a thoroughly engrossing volume, offering unique insight into man’s relationship with his own mortality. This illuminating glimpse into a cultural practice with which I was only vaguely familiar (I was aware of the verses composed by samurai before committing seppuku, but not much else) in turn contextualized the central themes of one of my favorite movies: Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After Life.

Like Professor Yoel Hoffman’s book, the film explores core tenets of Buddhist philosophy: transience, impermanence, and the rejection of self. The plot revolves around the premise that the souls of the newly deceased are permitted to choose just a single memory to carry with them into the hereafter. Rather than selecting concrete moments in time, however, most of the characters prefer to retain emotionally evocative sensory images: the fragrant petals of cherry blossoms dancing in the breeze, the cottony texture of clouds drifting past the window of an airplane, the scent of laundry detergent on a childhood blanket.

The jisei poet’s final impression of this fleeting, illusory world is likewise deeply personal; after all, the details that he commits to paper immediately prior to his departure cannot help but be significant. When he gazes out the window, what does he notice? Are the flowers in the field wilted and withered, mimicking his aged flesh? Or are they freshly bloomed—a symbol of renewal, rejuvenation, rebirth? Does morning dew glisten on the grass, or has it already evaporated in the midday heat? Are the cicadas singing amongst the treetops, or have they long since fled, their discarded husks clinging to the bark?

Such observations are not recorded for the benefit of the living; they belong to the authors alone—keepsakes, talismans, mementos intended to ease their passage to the shore beyond this material plane of existence. And despite my skepticism regarding matters of faith, I must admit that I find Kore-eda’s elaboration on this notion to be quite compelling.

For what could be more comforting than an eternity spent in the blissful embrace of one instant of happiness?

Recently Viewed: Broker

Like The Shape of Water and First Reformed, Broker is a cinematic Rosetta Stone, clarifying the central themes that pervade Hirokazu Kore-eda’s body of work. The writer-director has always sought to illuminate the humanity in the unlikeliest of social pariahs, from deadbeat dads (in After the Storm) to shoplifters (in the aptly titled Shoplifters) to magically animated inflatable sex dolls (in Air Doll, a whimsically literal variation on the premise). Here, he turns his lens on child traffickers—an unconventional subject, to be sure, but fertile ground for conflict in the hands of a storyteller with the proper sensibilities.

Fortunately, Kore-eda tackles the topic with remarkable sensitivity. He neither condones nor condemns his protagonists’ actions; he merely observes them—their flaws, their ambiguities, their nuances—and allows the viewer to decide whether or not they “deserve” to be forgiven. It’s a difficult judgment to make: every character is compassionate and selfish in roughly equal measure; do their ethical lapses truly make them irredeemable? After all, the inflexible bureaucracy of “the system” is rarely kind to underprivileged outsiders; even the most ardent enforcers of “law and order” must acknowledge that crime is often motivated by desperation rather than malice.

Perfectly cast, stylistically spare, and emotionally rich, Broker is a bona fide masterpiece. I’m not terribly consistent in my stance on “auteur theory” (production being an inherently collaborative process), but Kore-eda’s filmography makes a compelling argument in its favor.

Recently Viewed: Air Doll

On paper, the premise of Air Doll (an inflatable sex doll somehow develops sentience and proceeds to wander the streets of Tokyo) sounds absolutely absurd—the kind of story you’d expect to encounter in a particularly exploitative hentai magazine. Leave it to Palme d'Or-winning director Hirokazu Kore-eda to transform such a sleazy concept into a legitimately compelling allegory about the search for community, compassion, and genuine relationships amidst the spiritual decay of urban isolation.

After awakening one morning to discover that she has inexplicably grown a "heart," the eponymous Nozomi (an identity assigned to her by her first owner; according to the packaging in which she was sold, her manufacturers christened her “Candy”) realizes that she is merely a “substitute”—an inanimate object designed to simulate the act of love without burdening her “companions” with the complexities of emotional baggage—and therefore embarks on a quest to learn what it means to be “alive.” Unfortunately, the various lost souls that she encounters—a ragtag collection of introverts, outcasts, and misanthropes—are just as empty, hollow, and insubstantial as she is.

Anchored by Doona Bae’s captivating performance and Katsuhiko Maeda’s mesmerizing score, Air Doll is a masterpiece of magical realism, utilizing subtle supernatural elements to explore universal themes of humanity, loneliness, and longing.

[Yes, I know it’s a pseudonym for actress Yukiko Ehara. Still got a chuckle out of me while I was browsing the Criterion Channel.]

Recently Viewed: Ten Years Japan

Just got back in from my second Japan Cuts screening, Ten Years Japan—a significantly more somber and thematically dense affair than the cute cat movie. Executive produced by Hirokazu Kore-eda, this anthology film (part of an ongoing international collaborative project) tasks five up-and-coming directors with speculating on the possible state of their country one decade into the future. Predictably, it’s kind of a mixed bag in terms of both content and quality; some of the shorts are bitter, hard-hitting satire in the tradition of Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”, while others are a bit more optimistic about the human condition. Tackling such diverse topics as war, poverty, euthanasia, digital surveillance, and nuclear annihilation and evoking such cinematic classics as 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Ballad of Narayama, Stalker, and Kore-eda’s own After Life, it at least offers up plenty of variety; unfortunately, the execution never quite lives up to the promising premise. It has, however, gotten me interested in checking out the other entries in the series...

Recently Viewed: Shoplifters

Returned to IFC Center to catch a screening of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters. Like After the Storm, this Palme d’Or winning masterpiece follows a cast of unconventional, morally-ambiguous protagonists—in this case, a makeshift family of blue collar workers struggling to make ends meet (even taking the elderly matriarch’s pension into account), often resorting to petty theft just to put food on the table. When they make a spur-of-the-moment decision to “rescue” a five-year-old girl that they suspect is being neglected and abused, however, their small-time criminal enterprise begins to unravel. They’re not “heroes” by any stretch of the imagination, but they exhibit a certain rebellious quality that makes them almost admirable; in a society that values staying quiet and “minding one’s own business,” this ragtag band of outsiders and outcasts dares to support one another (unlike the so-called “proper authorities,” who would prefer to ignore the injustices they’ve endured).

Recently Viewed: After the Storm

I was still feeling a little sick this morning, but I'm a glutton for punishment as well as a cinephile, so I willed myself out of bed, made my way over to IFC Center, and purchased a ticket for Hirokazu Kore-eda's After the Storm.

I’d only seen one other Kore-eda film before today: After Life. While that earlier production explores themes of death and memory from the perspective of the recently departed, After the Storm instead examines the lives of those left behind, focusing in particular on an elderly widow, who struggles to cope with the lingering consequences of her late husband’s gambling addiction, and her divorced son, Ryota, who fears that he will follow in his father’s self-destructive footsteps.

As he abuses his position as a private investigator to blackmail clients, blows every paycheck at the local racetrack, and obsessively pries into his ex-wife’s love life, Ryota gradually emerges as one of the most fascinating and nuanced protagonists I’ve yet encountered in Japanese cinema, as beautifully contradictory as Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle. Sure, he frequently rummages through his mother’s closets and cabinets, searching for anything that looks valuable enough to pawn… but he spends every cent he earns on child support and expensive gifts for his young son, even as he languishes in relative squalor.

Ryota’s painful efforts to reunite his splintered family and come to terms with his father’s legacy could have easily resulted in a generic, cliched melodrama. Fortunately, like Yasujiro Ozu, Kore-eda understands that truly compelling conflict arises not from tearful confessions, but from rambling small talk whispered over tea while the rice bowls and chopsticks dry in the kitchen sink. The director’s innate ability to transform mundane moments into life-changing epiphanies made me realize that I’ve been ignoring his work for far too long—a mistake I intend to remedy very soon.