I WISH: LETTING KIDS BE KIDS

 

There's absolutely no doubt after watching Hirokazu Kore-eda's latest film I Wish that his reputation for being among the best two or three directors working in Japan today is well deserved.  Relating the story of two brothers, Koichi (Koki Maeda) and Ryunosuke (Ohshirô Maeda), separated by their parents divorce, this is a simply told and greatly observational drama that stands with the director's best work, including Still Walking and his 1998 masterpiece, After Life.

Living with his mother, Koichi quietly mourns the loss of his family life.  Early in the film, Kore-eda allows us to see how the divorce has impacted his social life at school, where he's made to feel ashamed when a teacher doles out homework based around the occupations of each student's father.  Koichi takes refuge in fantasy and denial and, when news of a new bullet train hits town, he (naturally?) theorizes that the exchange in energy created by the simultaneous passing of old and new trains will grant a wish to anyone who witnesses it.

In addition to the trains, Kore-eda cleverly plays with the dynamic between the old and the new in several places in the film.  Koichi repeatedly holds up his current home life against how things were in the past.  And his grandfather expresses their distaste for contemporary Japanese sweets by trying to replicate and mass produce a traditional recipe from his youth.  Nostalgia is a hallmark in many of Kore-eda's films and, like in his prior work, it's never overemphasized here as much as it flows out of the material with a gentle honesty that's perfectly matched with the material at hand.

Best of all, this is a movie that excels at letting the child actors shed the appearance of performance; it allows these kids to be kids.  No doubt, a film involving children dealing with divorce needs to have some gravity, but, thankfully, I Wish doesn't force the type of emotive trauma that's become almost  de rigueur in contemporary coming of age cinema.  This is a very good film that wisely applies a light and fanciful touch in lieu of the dark theatrics favored by others.  And what a refreshing choice that is.

I Wish begins its run at Living Room Theaters on Friday, June 29nd.  More info available here.

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Out to Lunch but We'll Be Back Soon

Anyone who might have popped by the blog in the last month and a half could easily have assumed that we've closed up shop permanently.  I wanted to let everybody know that this is not the case.  I've been busy working on a film project with friends that's kept me fairly distracted from writing.  Between it and my day job, it's been the blog and other writing projects that have fallen to the wayside.

The good news is that we should be up and at it again sometime in early June.  So, don't give up on us quite yet.  We still have plenty of film nerd magic to share with the world.

And, just so this post isn't entirely about our temporary hiatus, here's a nod to a couple of films/items I've enjoyed during the break (and would have loved to write about at greater length):

#1: I saw Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Merchant of Four Seasons for the first time.  One of those film experiences that becomes more and more rare as you dive further into the deep end of cinema...it felt like falling in love with movies all over again.

#2: I caught Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams in 3D during its run at Cinema 21.  I'm still not convinced that this current generation of 3D exhibition is anything more than a phase/fad/marketing scam.  But I will admit that Herzog's use of 3D was entirely appropriate and enhancing to the overall experience of his film.  And, y'know, if folks like Herzog, Wim Wenders and Takashi Miike are jumping onto the 3D train, then maybe I am slightly more interested in what the possibilities are for this otherwise gimmicky (and admission-fee inflating) technology.

#3: One of my favorite directors, Terrence Malick, won the Palme D'or at the Cannes Film Festival for his newest (and much anticipated) feature, The Tree of Life.  While another of my favorites, Lars Von Trier, made a complete ass of himself while promoting his newest full-length, Melancholia, getting himself banned from the festival with his juvenile, misguided and just-not-very-successful attempts at improv comedy.

#4: All the excitement of this year's edition of Cannes got me thinking about watching past winners of the Palme D'or, catching up with those films that I've never made time for and revisiting others which I haven't seen in years.  Thus far, I've taken another look at David Lynch's 1990 effort Wild at Heart, an old favorite that, despite taking the top prize at Cannes, was a complete disaster both critically and financially in the U.S. And in a first-time viewing, Luis Buñuel's 1961 film Viridiana flashed across my screen last night.

Who knows, maybe I'll grapple with other winners of Cannes most prestigious prize when the blog heats up again in June.  Only time will tell...

In the meantime, don't forget that you can find us on Facebook here.  While you're at it, you can also check out the Facebook page for the short film that's been keeping me from updating regularly.  It can be found here.

And, lest you think me a tease for posting the cover of Out to Lunch! without explicitly commenting on it, here's a link to the title track from Dolphy's masterpiece:

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