During
WWII, Kokura was a major center of munitions production, but it dodged the
mother of all bullets twice. It was the back-up target for Hiroshima and the
primary target for the mission that ultimately switched to the secondary target
of Nagasaki. That was profoundly tragic news for Nobuko Fukuhara. She would
survive, but her son Koji was incinerated without a trace. Three years later,
she will try to move on with a little help from his ghost in Yoji Yamada’s Nagasaki: Memories of My Son (a.k.a. Living with My Mother, trailer here), which screens
during this year’s Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.
Fukuhara’s
husband was never a factor and her eldest son was killed in combat, but she
soldiered on well enough, because Koji was truly the apple of her eye. As a
medical student, he had a draft deferment, which seemed fortunate at the time,
but his medical college was pretty much dead center in the blast radius. It was
hard for Fukuhara to let go, but she finally gives up her last false hopes
during his three-year memorial ceremony. Yet, that was exactly what was needed
to allow Koji’s spirit to approach her.
It
is clearly a bittersweet reunion, but it definitely provides Fukuhara some
solace. However, his still grieving fiancée Machiko Sata is still not ready to
move on and he is not ready to let go of her. Despite her mixed emotions,
Mother Fukuhara will try to convince them both to release each other.
Frankly,
Yamada is about the only filmmaker working today who can craft such an achingly
sentimental drama without taking a single falsely melodramatic step. Clearly, Nagasaki is a natural companion film to
Yamada’s Kabei: Our Mother, but
somehow it manages to be less dark and more tragic.
Once
again, Sayuri Yoshinaga quietly devastates us over and over again as Fukuhara,
just as she did in Kabei. If
anything, she is even sadder and more humane this time around. Kazunari
Ninomiya is strangely chipper for a dead person, but he actually helps shake
off the film’s inherent moroseness, dialing it down and locking-in when it
matters. Haru Kuroki is also quite touching as Sata, developing some truly
touching surrogate mother-daughter chemistry with Yoshinaga. To completely rip
out our heartstrings, Kenichi Kato and Isao Hashizume add memorable poignancy
as Yoshinaga’s discouraged black marketeer suitor and Koji’s even less
fortunate professor, respectively.
