If
you want to learn a little about the cremation process and have a good cry,
then Takumi Saito is your man. The actor’s directorial debut could serve as a
graceful coda to the Oscar-winning Departures.
Thirteen years after abandoning his wife and two sons, Masato Matsuda dies of
cancer. The two brothers grew up bitterly resenting their absent father, but
they are shocked to learn how he touched the lives of others during his funeral
in Saito’s blank 13 (trailer here), which screens as
a selection of the 2018 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film.
Matsuda
was a degenerate gambler who only ever brought home debt-collectors. However,
he managed to eke out a few bonding moments with his younger son Koji over
baseball. That is why Koji is the only one who tries to reconnect with Masato
when the family hears of his cancer diagnosis. The effort is awkward and
ultimately inconclusive.
Nevertheless,
the Matsuda Brothers resolve to do their duty at the funeral, but for a while
it looks like only Koji’s girlfriend Saori Nishida will be there for moral
support. Yet, to their surprise, a Runyonesque assortment of gamblers,
bar-workers, and nocturnal dwellers coalesces to paint a picture of their father
as the salt of the earth.
Comparisons
with Departures will be inevitable,
but blank 13 has considerably more
humor. There are a number of eccentric and ribald reminiscences at the funeral,
but the tonal shift is never as drastic as it sounds. Even at its most
outrageous, the film maintains a wistful melancholy.
Lily
Franky is perfectly cast as the sad-eyed but ultimately inscrutable Matsuda.
Misuzu Kanno is quietly devastating as Hiroko, while Issei Takahashi openly
expresses the pain and confusion Koji never really got over. Initially, Saito
seems to have assigned himself a one-note role playing the bitter older
brother, Yoshiyuki Matsuda, but he really lowers the emotional boom down the
stretch. Plus, about half a dozen Japanese character actors of varying degrees
of recognizability combine to a create truly distinctive mosaic portrait of the
dearly departed, sort of led by a
game Jiro Sato as the unlikely impromptu master of ceremonies.
