I Wish (Kiseki)

I WISH (KISEKI) (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2011)

Like many kids whose parents have separated, brothers Koichi (Koki Maeda) and Ryunosuke (Ohshirô Maeda) would like to reunite their family.  Twelve-year-old Koichi, the older and more serious of the siblings, believes he’s found the solution in I WISH (KISEKI).  He overhears classmates saying that whoever sees two high-speed trains pass each other for the first time will get their wishes granted.  New bullet trains are scheduled to begin service across the island of Kyushu in two months, so the boys work on plans to meet halfway in Kumamoto prefecture to get their dreams fulfilled.

Koichi, who lives with their mother Nozomi (Nene Ohtsuka) and her parents in the island’s southern prefecture Kagoshima, is pushed into action by hearing his mom being encouraged to move on.  She’s already taken a job as a cashier at a grocery store.  A boyfriend could soon follow.  Knowing the importance of the mission, Koichi prepares with an explorer’s thoroughness.  He and his friends examine maps to determine where the trains are most likely to pass, calculate a budget for the trip, and scrape together the money by looking for spare coins and selling some toys.

Ryunosuke doesn’t seem to mind the new arrangement as much as Koichi.  Certainly he would like for everyone to be together again, but he doesn’t worry about whether or not their parents will reconcile.  Since choosing to stay with their musician father Kenji (Joe Odagiri) in the island’s northern prefecture Fukuoka, he’s taken to tending a garden and surrounded himself with many friends.  For Ryunosuke the trip seems more like a chance to see his brother for the first time in six months and a fun day away from home with his pals.

As noisy as two trains passing each other at 160 miles per hour is, the disruption to the surrounding environment is fleeting.  The same can’t be said for the effects on children of divorce or a parent’s gambling problem, but in I WISH such disturbances don’t necessarily need to be ruinous either.  Writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda studies the resiliency of children in the face of life transformations large and small.  He tracks these adaptations with plenty of charm and wit, making this observational look at the kids closer to Francois Truffaut’s SMALL CHANGE than his own harrowing NOBODY KNOWS.

The great pleasure of I WISH is Kore-eda capturing kids being kids instead of the little adults many films mistake children for.  Sometimes they can be very funny, like when they talk about crushes on teachers and what they would wish for if they could be guaranteed to have one dream made real .  At other points watching them can be heartbreaking.  For instance, Koichi is more tuned into his mother’s fragile emotional state than anyone else realizes.  I WISH excels at evoking a child-like state of mind in all of its wonders and concerns because of Kore-eda’s astuteness in following how kids make sense of the world and change their perspectives.

I WISH retains Kore-eda’s gift for empathetic scrutiny of daily life and ordinary people while also delivering miracles of a kind.  Hurl prayers for momentous change if one will, but don’t forget that answers and greatest blessings can come in the form of chance encounters and common pleasures.  I WISH feels slighter than Kore-eda’s best work, such as AFTER LIFE and STILL WALKING, but it’s a warm effort that finds through the tough times the kids can be, and often are, all right.

Grade: B+

Still Walking (Aruitemo aruitemo)

STILL WALKING (ARUITEMO ARUITEMO) (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2008)

In STILL WALKING the Yokoyama home is bustling with activity and chatter as three generations gather for an annual remembrance of Junpei, the eldest son and brother who died years earlier while saving a child from drowning. The prickly head of the household is Kyohei (Yoshio Harada), a retired physician bitter for, among other reasons, being forced to quit practicing. He is as quiet and distant as his wife Toshiko (Kirin Kiki) is talkative and attentive.

The memorial visit is particularly uncomfortable for the oldest living son Ryota (Hiroshi Abe). Unlike Junpei, Ryota did not follow in his father's professional footsteps. Rather than being a doctor, he decided on a career restoring art. All these years later Kyohei still begrudges Ryota's choice as though it was intended as a personal affront. With Ryota's return home coinciding with employment problems, something he wants kept secret from his parents, he is already feeling sufficiently inferior.

Joining Ryota on the visit is his new wife Yukari (Yui Natsukawa) and stepson Atsushi (Shohei Tanaka). Ordinarily this might be an occasion for his parents to express pleasure with their late marrying son, but they think he has taken on damaged goods in the form of a widow and her child. Also fluttering about the house are Ryota's sister Chinami (You), her husband, and their two kids. Chinami is using this time to try and nail down a commitment for her family to move into her parents' home.

STILL WALKING writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda began as a television documentary filmmaker before transitioning to narrative fiction films. His keen observational sense is put to exceptional use in this lovely and heartbreaking portrait of family and all of its complications. STILL WALKING primarily consists of conversations and scrutiny of interpersonal dynamics. While it may appear that Kore-eda is merely depicting everyday life, his studied method probes beneath the surface of congenial interactions to reveal years of tangled emotions and judgments this loving but bruised family holds against one another.

As is probably true for many families, passive-aggressiveness dominates the Yokoyamas' communication style. Toshiko puts on a warm and cheerful exterior, yet she harbors the greatest and longest held resentments of anyone in the house. Kiki is marvelous in how she can use a smile and an innocuous statement to make the most cutting remarks. By all appearances Toshiko is happily entering her golden years, but gradually she is shown to be a deeply angry and wounded person. Toshiko doesn't have nor require a big outburst to voice her displeasure. Whether it's by word or deed, such as not laying out new pajamas for Atsushi, she subtly lets her new daughter-in-law know where she stands. Politely accepting the arrows slung her way, Natsukawa's sensitive performance as Yukari brings an outsider's fresh perspective on hurtful behaviors and attitudes that her new family takes for granted.

While STILL WALKING'S characters can seem unnecessarily mean while staying civil in how they treat each other, Kore-eda adopts a highly empathetic outlook on the Yokoyamas. He acknowledges the complexity within each person and how difficult it can be for the pieces of a family to fit, especially as each changes over a lifetime. The only experience we can ever truly know to the full extent is our own, and Kore-eda sees that each character is doing the best with what is available to them, even if their understanding of family members frequently comes up short.

Toshiko comes across as cruel at a few specific moments, but Kore-eda doesn't think of her as a terrible individual. He sees that she lashes out because she's in pain. The film doesn't excuse Toshiko's callousness but recognizes where it comes from. That Kore-eda generates this profound comprehension and compassion for multiple characters is the mark of a major talent.

Longstanding family concerns and hang-ups aren't resolved overnight, and STILL WALKING doesn't bother attempting to repair them. Rather, Kore-eda captures a lot of truth in the details of communication, shared history, and the passing down of knowledge. He finds it in a mother's slight nudge of a child on the verge of inappropriate laughing. It's there as a parent tells a kid not to act poor when combining multiple soft drinks from a self-serve soda fountain. It's there too as a family argues over who really did something in a highly retold story in which the facts and reality may not agree. STILL WALKING is so uncommonly and beautifully perceptive about how families interact that it feels as natural as putting one foot in front of the next.

Grade: A