Nobody Knows

Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda (known also for Maborosi (1995) and Our Little Sister (2015)) breaks the viewer's heart with Nobody Knows (2004), a film about the abandonment of four children who do what little they can to survive in a tiny Tokyo apartment, in Ota-ku it seems, as their dreams are slowly suffocated by the neglect and their desperate circumstances.

It begins with a young mother and her eldest son, Akira, arriving at the building they're about to move into, and they seem happy, normal. The two youngest children arrive next, secretly delivered to the apartment in suitcases, and the elder sister, Kyōko, comes separately by train, and we now know something is horribly wrong. Uncomfortably, we also see this family making do with what they have, and so we remain positive and hopeful. The children each have a different father, and they're not allowed to attend school, and only Akira can go outside, since someone has to buy groceries and pay the bills. The mother stays out all night, and often doesn't come back at all. Eventually she disappears for months without a word, leaving the children to fend for themselves.

The film, based on the real-life story of the Sugamo child-abandonment incident, will make you cry. Kore-eda is masterful at using everyday objects to feed the narrative and arouse emotion, such as filling the frame with a filthy toy piano on a broken leg, or dwelling on a struggling plant in a muddy, cracked Cup Noodle container. But the primary reason to watch this is Yūya Yagira's incredible performance. The depth of his expressions and how he communicates a range of feelings with his eyes, as a twelve-year-old actor no less, is extraordinary. Not only was he the first Japanese actor to win the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival, he also became the youngest actor to win it. To sum up, Nobody Knows is a powerful, thought-provoking film with the courage to take on a social problem that's far too often ignored.

Grass Labyrinth

Grass Labyrinth (Kusa Meikyū) is a Japanese film by director Shūji Terayama. Only forty minutes long, it was released in France in 1979 along with two other short avant-garde films by directors Just Jaeckin and Walerian Borowczyk.

A young man named Akira (Takeshi Wakamatsu) is seeking the music and lyrics to a song he loved as a boy. In his search he slips into a time-warp, and his childhood and adulthood blend together. There are balls, big and small. One is a dinosaur-egg-sized pregnancy stone, which may have magically impregnated Akira's mother. He's desperate to know the song completely, and in the film's frantic wanderings, Akira's labyrinth, he happens upon the grungy home of an insane nymphomaniac witch. This tormented girl has been waiting ages for her lover to return. She sheds her clothes and attempts to seduce (or rape?) Akira the boy (Hiroshi Mikami) in a scene that's brilliantly insane. It's alarming too. My eyes were wide open for all of it. And the screeching panicky bird and witch's ghostly make-up make it all the more bewitching.

Akira frees himself until his mother ties him to a tree, to protect him, she says, and, for good measure, she writes magical words across his skin and clothes in order to stave off the lonely nympho demon should she come round. Later, Akira visits a brothel, watches the body of a woman wash up on shore (who has drowned herself after a love affair with a war deserter), and he seemingly gets trapped in a maze-like house near the film's end, in a grotesque, incredibly compelling scene that must be watched since it defies accurate written description.

I've read that Terayama's other films also depict the nightmarish dread children experience when they encounter cruelty and indifference. In Grass Labyrinth, Akira is obsessed with that song he once knew, and nostalgia certainly plays a role in his story, mixed in with distorted memories, and everything through a surreal lens. There are countless compelling scenes, with plenty of colors, and series after series of short cuts for a remarkably intense effect, making it all the more disturbing. Definitely memorable.

The Famous Sword Bijomaru

Meito Bijomaru (The Famous Sword Bijomaru) is a 1945 film by director and screenwriter Kenji Mizoguchi. Kiyone Sakurai forges a sword for his benefactor, Kozaemon Onoda, a sword that shatters while Onoda is defending his lord. He is placed under house arrest for his failure to protect the lord's palanquin, then Naito tells Onoda that he can help restore Onoda's honor so long as he can wed Onoda's daughter's, Sasae, and when Onoda refuses, Naito slices him dead.

Sasae instructs Kiyone to make another sword, to avenge her father’s death. But Kiyone, overcome with guilt, commits suicide by seppuku. His dying request is that his soul be used in the making of a new sword to avenge Onoda. Eventually, the sword is made, and it's Sasae (a woman!) who fights Naito to the end in a remarkably well-timed and carefully choreographed scene, with pyrotechnics no less.

There is a lot of cinematic beauty in the film, with incredible framing and outdoor scenes at night as well as shots of sparks flying as the swordsmiths hammer away by the fire. Mizoguchi's famous long takes allow us time to reflect on what has transpired, while at the same time we're able to read slowly the mise-en-scène, which not only creates atmosphere but on some level plays a role itself. In one such instance, we're given two long takes of a space surrounded by shoji screens, which are hanging off their rails after a sword fight between the authorities and ronin. This destruction which remains after the battle is left for us to ponder without distraction of movement or sound, and I wonder if it could also be viewed as a symbolic representation of Japan in tatters nearing the war's end.

There are elements of propaganda as well. Considering the film was made in 1945, I expected the doctrine to be blatant, and yet it's not overbearing, at least not to the point where we can no longer take the storyline seriously or to where we cannot appreciate the film's artistry. The more pronounced propaganda comes in just a couple spurts, such as in messages about loyalty and devotion to the emperor, like:

"By being born in this country, we follow the way of the subject, which is loyalty and self-sacrifice. This is nothing heroic. It is serving the emperor. The emperor encourages the young generations and allows rewards to mourning families. Such is the imperial government. One must not conspicuously brag. And certainly not when the deeds aren't amazing. One must restrain himself of any envy. And model his behavior on previous generations."

The sword as a symbol of strength, and the embodiment of ancestral spirits, at a time when Japan was facing defeat, makes the film quite historically significant. The swordmakers try and try again to produce a weapon that's unbreakable, realizing they must do it on their own, without the help of outsiders, but with heart, and also with their master's soul. "We won't make it!" one cries, and the other berates him with, "Stop whining!" and then a transparent Sasae (her soul) starts hammering away with the men. The message is clear: Only together, with heart and soul, can the powerful Japanese spirit survive and transcend, only then can it be victorious.