FCS ’15: The World of Kanako

Showa Fujishima has made just about every parenting mistake a father can make and invented some that are uniquely his own. Not surprisingly, he really hasn’t been around much to see the results. At least that allows him to cling to a few willful misconceptions regarding Kanako. However, when his estranged ex-wife begrudgingly requests the ex-cop’s help finding their missing daughter, he learns far more than he bargained for in Tetsuya Nakashima’s The World of Kanako (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 edition of Film Comment Selects.

Prepare to have your head messed with. Nakashima will fracture his timeline nearly beyond recognition and do his best to represent Fujishima’s warped perspective. The former copper now working as a rent-a-cop always had anger management issues, which directly led to his personal and professional disgrace. He is supposed to take drugs for his temper and mood swings, but they do not seem to be working, even though they might somewhat skew his perception of reality.

Kanako has already been missing for five days before Fujishima’s ex finally asks for his help. Intuitively, he assumes her disappearance is linked to the punky gang kids she has been hanging with, which is largely correct, but his presupposition that Kanako is an innocent victim will be rudely disabused. He soon learns she is up to her neck in drugs and pimping out classmates to well-heeled pedophiles. She was also apparently somehow mixed up in the suicide of her classmate Ogata. We will learn just exactly how so in flashbacks seen through the eyes of Boku, a secondary POV character, whose experiences with Kanako will parallel those of poor Ogata.

Meanwhile, Fujishima’s hostile former colleagues are more than happy to treat him as a suspect in a gangland-style killing perpetrated at the minimart he was ostensibly guarding. It turns out Kanako’s world is a small world when links turn up suggesting a connection between the convenience store massacre and her disappearance. Fujishima is in for a lot of pain and humiliation, but he will deal out plenty more to anyone he considers a potential suspect or accomplice.

Man, Kanako is dark, even by the standard Nakashima set in his previous films, Confessions and Memories of Matsuko. However, unlike the seamlessly constructed escalation of Confessions, WoK is a bit of a rat’s nest, compulsively flashing forward and backwards and liberally tossing unreliable perceptions or downright hallucinations to the point where many viewers will just drop the narrative thread and stop caring altogether, despite the occasional tongue-in-cheek hat-tips to 1970s exploitation cinema. The form of the film is enough to give you a headache, separate and apart from the rampant cruelty it depicts. Based on Akio Fukamachi’s novel, WoK is a nihilistic indictment of just about everything—that’s nihilism spelled with a capital “F” and a capital “U.”

To his credit, Kôji Yakusho doubles down over and over again as the violently erratic Fujishima. It is a messy, let-it-all-hang-out performance, but Yakusho takes it to such dark places, it is ultimately rather soul-scarring. Nana Komatsu is ethereally evil as the deceptively innocent looking Kanako, while Satoshi Tsumabuki chews the scenery with swaggering glee as Det. Asai, the sucker-sucking cop who apparently thinks he’s Kojack. Ai Hashimoto manages to add a thimble full of humanity to the film as Kanako’s estranged and disgusted middle school friend Morishita, but such figures of decency are few and far between in Kanako’s world. Frankly, it is hard to fully judge Kanako’s former homeroom teacher, Rie Higashi, but (Matsuko star) Miki Nakatani’s performance is truly riveting and maybe even redemptive.

If this is what life is really like for Japanese middle and high school students, I would immigrate if I were a parent. It is hard to imagine a more exhausting film than WoK, for reasons of both style and content. It is clearly the work of a genuine auteur, who does not get his just international due, but Nakashima really demands a great deal of indulgence this time around. Lacking the tightness of Confessions and the pure gut-wrenching emotional payoff of Matsuko, it just starts to feel like it is piling it on after a while. For those who enjoyed cult hits like Confessions, Lady Snowblood, Audition, and the real Oldboy, but found them too artificially optimistic, WoK will give you the straight shot of bile you crave. Recommended accordingly for ardent Nakashima admirers, The World of Kanako screens this Thursday (3/5), at the Walter Reade Theater, concluding this year’s Film Comment Selects.

NYFF ’13: Real

Overlooked in the only Jurassic Park that matters, the pleisiosaur finally gets its big screen close-up, courtesy of the other Kurosawa.  Initially, it is only a metaphor, but it becomes significantly meaningful and pressing to the young lovers in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Real (trailer here), which screens tonight at the 51^st New York Film Festival.

Initially, Koichi Fujita and Atsumi Kazu look like the ideal couple.  Kazu seems perfectly sweet, but the comic artist specializes in grisly serial killer mangas.  Unfortunately, while suffering a persistent case of writers block, Kazu tried to take her own life, falling into a coma instead.  Hoping to assist her recovery, Fujita has agreed to a new procedure known as “sensing,” by which he will enter her subconscious. 

If Fujita gently probes the circumstances surrounding her attempted suicide, he can encourage her conscious mind to re-awaken.  The early sessions go relatively well, but Fujita is increasingly alarmed by the residual phantom images intruding on his reality as a result of the sensing.  He also carries back a concrete mission to perform in the real world.  Kazu yearns to see the pleisiosaur drawing she gave him while they were both children living on the provincial island of Hikone.

As Kurosawa’s title suggests, there will be many questions about the nature of reality throughout Real.  However, every twist and revelation serves to advance the story (adapted from Rokuro Inui’s novel), so they never feel cheap or forced.  While perhaps less of a departure for the horror auteur than his previous outing, the dark family drama Tokyo Sonata, Real is best considered in the tradition of Richard Matheson writing in his What Dreams May Come and Somewhere in Time bag.  In fact, what is most striking about Real is how deeply Fujita and Kazu feel about each other while being so reserved in the manner they express it.

Frankly, Takeru Sato’s work could be uncharitably categorized as a bit stiff or awkward, but to be fair, Fujita is supposed to be a step slow in the intuition department.  On the other hand, Haruka Ayase’s performance as Kazu is acutely sensitive.  In fact, she handles her game-changing pivot with considerable grace.  It is also a bit surprising to see a major star like Miki Nakatani (truly mesmerizing in Memories of Matsuko) in the comparatively straight forward supporting role of Dr. Eiko Aihara, but she makes the most of it.

Real is a text book example of how special effects can and should be subservient to story and character development.  There is plenty of head-tripping and reality-bending, but it is the love story drives the film.  Nicely supported by Kei Haneoka’s elegant musical themes, Real is far more accessible for general audiences than most of Kurosawa’s films.  Highly recommended, it screens tonight (10/7) at Alice Tully Hall as a main slate selection of the 2013 NYFF.

Japan Cuts ’10: Memories of Matsuko

Even though Matsuko Kawajiri always has a song in her heart, one would never expect to find her in a movie musical. Her world might have been candy-colored, but it was also cruel, constantly denying her the love she yearned for in Tetsuya Nakashima emotionally draining movie musical Memories of Matsuko (trailer here), a “Best of the Unreleased Naughties” selection screening of the 2010 Japan Cuts: Festival of Contemporary Japanese Film.

Shô Kawajiri never knew he had an Aunt Matsuko until his father off-handedly tells him of her murder. Going through something of an aimless period in his own life, he agrees to clean out his Aunt’s apartment for his somewhat estranged old man. As he rummages through the remnants of her fractured life, he comes to know his Aunt better in death than anyone knew her in life.

Matsuko endured more suffering than seems humanly possible. Once a conscientious teacher popular for her singing voice, she was unfairly dismissed for a crime she did not commit. Disowned by her family, she tolerated one abusive relationship after another, desperately seeking the love her father withheld. Spiraling ever downward, she is lured into a career of vice, even doing a stint in prison. At least there she meets of her few true friends, the future porn-star tycoon Megumi Sawamura. Unfortunately, the ever-suffering Kawajiri is not even close to bottoming out, yet she perseveres, like an indomitable Candide in a blizzard of humiliation.

Though at times it presents itself as an over-the-top parody, Memories is an absolutely exhausting film. It never, ever lets up on its poor kind-hearted protagonist. Indeed, Miki Nakatani’s earnest performance is so endearingly goofy and vulnerable, it makes Memories that much more difficult to watch. Beyond compelling, she is frankly devastating. She is the film, but Asuka Kurosawa is also quite touching as the alluring Sawamura.

Strangely, Memories works surprisingly well on a musical level, particularly Matsuko’s poignant yet devilishly catchy theme song by Gabriele Roberto and Takeshi Shibuya. Also represented at this year’s Japan Cuts with Confessions, the brilliant opening selection, Nakashima is obviously not drawn to cheerful trifles. Ironically, while Memories is a far more depressing cinematic experience (despite its bright colors and upbeat songs), it ultimately expresses a deeply humanist sentiment not found in Confessions. In fact, Memories explicitly states: “no life is meaningless.”

Fearless in the title role, Nakatani justly swept the Japanese film awards for Memories. Technically and dramatically accomplished, it is a film sure to inspire passionate reactions. Love it or hate, when Memories is over, you will know you saw a film. It screens at the Japan Society this coming Thursday (7/15).