The
human mind is an incredibly complex machine. It can protect us by burying
painful memories or betray us through dementia. Kanzaki has developed a device
that will help it make up for its mistakes.
A depressed provincial town gets its spirit back when he helps its
citizens remember their happiest moments, but he has a secret agenda in Sabu’s Happiness (trailer here), which screens
during the 2017 New York Asian Film Festival.
Kanzaki’s
retro-futuristic helmet is the product of a marriage between science and
traditional Chinese medicine. It stimulates the right lobes to trigger perfect
recall of the wearer’s happiest moment ever. At least that is the feature
Kanzaki shows off when he somberly blows into town. Soon, all the demoralized
senior citizens and disillusioned bureaucrats feel like they have a new lease
on life. However, to secure the town’s future, Kanzaki will have to reach the
younger generation too. In fact, that was the whole point. It turns out
reaching one twentynothing is his reason for being there.
Happiness, a truly ironic
title, is the second film about mysterious strangers playing games with
villagers’ memories, by means of wild-looking helmet, but it is far darker and
more realistic than Chen Yu-hsun’s Village of No Return. It also inspires deep, viscerally-felt sympathy for the outsider
in question, as it takes its more sinister turn.
Masatoshi
Nagase is a king of understatement (for reference, watch him in Sweet Bean or Kano), but here he takes angst-filled brooding to new artistic
heights. He hardly speaks a word, yet you can see the pain radiating out from
him. We feel it with him, when Sabu reveals the shockingly brutal truth.
Happiness is likely to be divisive,
but that’s nothing new for Sabu. However, it is also an acutely human, achingly
moving film. It might just be the most memorable and distinctive pay-back movie
since the original, largely misunderstood Death Wish. Yet, it is impossible to imagine it would have a fraction of its
potency with a different actor playing Kanzaki. (We shudder at the thought of
an English remake with the likes of Johnny “The
Tourist” Depp).
