The
film is not about an earthquake which caused the death of the parents
of two children. It is rather about the after shock visible in the
face and the gestures of a girl called Haruna. Haruna is about 12, her
little brother Sotha around 5. Haruna tries to hide their parents
death before her little brother.
Near
the beginning of the film we see a funeral ceremony and later the
cremation of the parents. The coffins disappear behind doors of
steel. Right from the beginning there is this bitter taste of absence
of this parents. An aunt of the children will adopt them, trying to
make them feel home.
The
Japanese cinematic sensibility is often a seismographic one.
According to Carl Theodor Dreyer´s definition of the human face “as
a landscape he never got tired to explore", Sugita´s film is as
well about the face of the young actress Ayahne Omori. At the first
sight you do not see any emotion at all in this face. For now
the emotional shock of her loss is hidden. Her
movements are slow, often delayed. When she walks, she stops
sometimes. One is afraid her body will stop in the next moment to
work at all. Once we see her walking through a school corridor. She
walks and walks slowly and it seems she never will reach the end of
it. Another moment shows how she walks home from school. It begins to
rain. Suddenly she stops, remains almost motionless and than knees. The absence of visible emotion is tricky, like
silent high explosive gas escaping from a tank. In this moment you
get an idea about this child´s inner struggle. Just a hint, but a
hint which hits you with this subtle power which is more or less a
domain of this rich Japanese Cinema.
At
the beginning we see a small injury in the girl´s face. Her feet are
bleeding. It is the moment when she tried to safe her parents. Later
after they have died not even this slight physical injury is visible.
The
music of the film is a strange jingling on a piano which leads to nowhere. Someone
tries desperately to develop a melody. But this jingling remains fragmented, it seems efforts without avail. It sounds like this accords are revealing the condition of the children´s mental state. There is no home and there is no way to go.
We
see Haruna and Sotha near the end walking through almost deserted
landscapes. They do not know where to go and they do not have a place
to go.
It
is only the teacher at Haruna´s school who has an idea that this
girl is first of all heavily depressed, a lost soul. Mostly Haruna is
closed into herself. That is hard to bear, she seems the loneliest
person on earth.
Only
at the end her oppressed emotions are paving its way to the surface of
this slim body. Haruna´s body is now a single trembling and crying.And that leads to a Ritwik Ghatak-like emotional
commotion, a catharsis which is painful heartbreaking but a necessary
move towards healing.
Hitono
Nozomino Yoro Kobiyo is quite a lesson in cinematic patience, a domain in
which the Japanese Cinema developed so much great directors and
countless masterpieces.In western terms we could say Sugita
approaches a kind of cinematic minimalism. But how I suggested in my
Notes on Ozu´s Akibiyori, I am not sure about the accurateness of
this term considering Japan as one of the greatest country in the
history of Cinema. The European minimalism is often a minimalism of
ideology and of the intellect, while the Asian and especially the
Japanese is often one of the heart, a style which first of all is felt and lived.
Hitono
Nozomino Yoro Kobiyu is almost a film without any drama but until now
it was the first film at this year´s Berlin Filmfestival that broke
my heart.
At
the beginning of Werner Herzog´s Jeder für sich und Gott gegen
alle (The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser), there is following Quotation:
“Don´t you hear the terrible cry which we use to call the
silence?”
Rüdiger
Tomczak
Screenings:
February,
11, Cinemaxx 3, 14.00
February,
12,Filmtheater am Friedrichshain, 15.30
February,
16, Cinemaxx 3, 11.30
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