Pluskylang Great Film overall

HeadlinesExotic Boring

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

adilsylqa This one brings you so many memories. Its so plain yet so rich. I think even though the movie is Japanese everyone can relate. What makes it special it's the focus on our loved ones who are gone, and ignorance on those who are still alive. And the ending fills you with an impeccable regret. It also reflects the manners and behavior live on inescapable cycles. Only the one who has been sinful and experienced can see the damage they have created and then realize what they have done. You can have the most brightest mind but you will be back to your darkest roots if you ignore the simple things like your loved ones, your family. Don't resuscitate, that ain't worth nothing."It's always like that. I'm always a little late."

paul2001sw-1 'Still Walking' is a quiet film about a Japanese family which gathers annually to commemorate the life of a now dead member; perhaps you could say it's too quiet, especially as half of the visitors depart just half-way through. But it's shrewd on perceptive when it comes to observing the frailties and sensitivities that define us all, especially (although not exclusively) the natural cantankerousness of the old, even those who love us. For a westerner, part of the interest in this film is the way that it addresses universal themes, but from a peculiarly Japanese perspective. The resemblance of the grandfather to Colonel Saunders is purely superficial.

jamesmartin1995 'Still Walking', the stunning new film from Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda, begins with a premise so stale and overused that to read a plot synopsis of the movie is discouraging enough to prevent you from seeing it. A family reuniting for the anniversary of a loved one's death is nothing new in the world of cinema, and American TV movies have been churning out cloying, sickeningly saccharine variations on it for the past fifty years. Yet here is a film so refreshing and truthful that it restores your faith (almost completely) in the domestic drama.The similarities to Ozu are obvious; had this been directed by him, it might stand quite comfortably alongside his masterpieces. The comparisons that have been made between the great Japanese director and Koreeda are fully deserved. Like Ozu, he makes extensive and inventive use of a stationary camera, always arranging his shots to perfection: often, after a moment of discussion or 'drama', we are taken away from the characters and the camera lingers, providing a seemingly superfluous shot. This was an Ozu trademark, and it is used with reverence here; at times the camera focuses on seemingly trivial things, such as broken bath tiles or a flower in a glass, pale in the twilight. It allows us to digest what we have seen. The detail in his shots is quietly breathtaking: Koreeda has an eye for family meals and rituals in particular, and these scenes are handled masterfully.The film follows Ryota, his wife and his stepson as they return to his parents' home on the anniversary of his elder brother Junpei's death. It is gradually revealed that he was drowned while rescuing a young boy, now grown older. In Ozu's 'Tokyo Story', it was the parents who were the caring couple becoming victims of their children's' greed and selfishness in their old age; here, it is the parents who bicker, both with themselves and their children, making petty insinuations due to their outdated ideals and the tragedy they have suffered; it is their living children who suffer as a result. Yet there are no earth shattering arguments among smashed crockery, and very rarely a raised voice; by the time we meet these people, the arguments are past, only to be replaced by stifled politeness and bitter mutterings. They have settled into a routine; it is at once their refuge and their weapon, their greatest ailment but their only means of communication. If it weren't for the fact that it was Ryota's duty to return home each year on the anniversary of his brother's death, he might never return at all: his father quietly chastises him for never calling his mother, to which Ryota's reply is that she always complains when he does.How wise this film is in comparison to so many of its counterparts, where oversimplified, long standing feuds are rectified in a single visit! This film is far too mature to fall into that trap. It contains layer upon layer of characterisation: we get the sense that what we are seeing is a real family, not a TV cardboard cut out. Their issues are buried deep in the past, and as Koreeda notices, it is almost always the tiny, minute details that a family argues about - often referenced briefly and indirectly. And what an abundance of these we see, some never explained; it is through these microscopic specifics that Koreeda, with delicate precision, provides insight into his characters and their lives: the fact that the old patriarch, a retired doctor, refuses to go shopping because he is too proud to be seen by his neighbours carrying a shopping bag; the fact that his wife would have preferred her son to marry a divorced woman rather that a widow. These are some of the more trivial. There are mounds to discover.Perhaps the finest scene in the film is one in which Ryota and his mother Toshiko are talking in the kitchen together. It is nearly the end of the day and Ryota will be leaving in the morning. Earlier, in the afternoon, the boy that Junpei saved when he drowned visited to pay his respects. We learn that he does this every year, as Toshiko always invites him, and it is painful to notice the subtle ways in which Toshiko, with a sympathetic smile and polite tone, gently treats him with derision and belittles him. In the evening, Ryota and Toshika are making small talk about a sumo wrestler. The way in which that small talk gradually leads to Toshiko's painful admission of why she invites the boy every year is so subtle it is almost indiscernible; but what an honest, heart wrenching, cruel admission it is. There is no background music, and the camera, stationary, provides a close up of the side of Toshiko's face, downcast, as she speaks. It's an amazing scene.And when the twenty four hour visit is over, very little is rectified. Meaningless promises are made, resentments still fester, they are still awkward with each other. These people are desperate, and as we begin to learn, they want desperately to reach out to each other. But it is too awkward, and the honesty it would require would be far too painful. They are distinctly human, ignoring the problems and running away. And then, of course, it's too late, and all that's left is the broken pieces and the disappointment. What a sad, meditative film this is, handled with such astounding tenderness and compassion. But there are bittersweet moments, and even hope is to be found here! Far from being simple and cloying, this is an extraordinarily complex gem of a film, containing emotional truths and nuances that even the longest essay couldn't fully disclose. Words just can't be found to explain some things... and what a mess that fact makes of their lives!

Chad Shiira "Aruitemo aruitemo" is about ordinary Japanese people. Comparable to the 1980 Robert Redford-directed film starring Timothy Hutton, this Far East import also deals with a mom, and how she distributes her love among the children unequally, forcing the left behind son to compete against the dead one, the favored one, the first born. Fifteen years ago, Ryo's brother died in the ocean while trying to save another boy. With a wife and child among him, Ryota(Hiroshi Abe) has returned home for a reunion(to commemorate the fifteen-year anniversary of his sibling's untimely passing), where he faces not just a frosty mother, but a father who's the antithesis to the sire played by Donald Sutherland in the Redford film. Ryota brings home damaged goods; his wife and child are widow and stepson, and they rate far below their daughter's husband and two children, in spite of the Japanese people's partiality for boys over girls. Whereas Calvin Jarrett(Sutherland) loved his son unconditionally, Kyohei(Yoshio Harada) admonishes Ryota for not following in his footsteps by becoming a doctor. Although the surviving son is in the restoration business too, artwork can't begin to compete with the prestige of fixing people, thus the wedge was set between them years ago, and festers there still, throughout the duration of what will be his final visit back home. The mother(played by Kirin Kiri), who seems to be the more congenial parent, entertains Ryo's wife with her son's childhood things, and pulls out an old school essay, in which the boy had expressed an admiration for his father and the medical profession. But that fatal accident at the beach had brought out the truth in how the family worked, so Ryo turned to art history, probably to spite his father who loved him half as much as the first born. Sympathetic portrayals both, the widow and the stepson, nevertheless, they follow the pattern of reduced expectation, in which Ryo, had his brother lived on, would have married more prudently, and summoned a blushing bride for procreation. Told in retrospect, "Aruitemo aruitemo" takes place, perhaps, about ten years in the past, the amount of time it took Ryota to make peace with his parents, and love them unconditionally, once again."Your family isn't normal," says Toshiko to her son, on the return trip from a pilgrimage to the dead son's grave. She doesn't count Ryo's stepson as his real child. Such bluntness shocks, the cruelty of her words. Clearly, the tragedy had curdled her heart. At the outset, the mother makes corn "tempura" for her familial guests, especially the children, but on this same walking tour, the moviegoer learns that she can barely stand kids, and shudders at the thought of her daughter's filial plan of moving back home with her family. The filmmaker excels at showing how oblivious the young children are to the anger that bubbles beneath the surface of each family gathering. They don't see that the grown-ups are ready to implode. The mother's worst behavior, however, is reserved for the boy who survived, an overweight dropout with no career prospects whom the family invites every year, so that he remembers the sacrifice made on his behalf, a sacrifice in vain. The mother tells Ryota that he wants the boy to suffer just as she had suffered. The father calls him "trash". In "Ordinary People", the surviving brother(Hutton) was at the scene of the boating accident, and is made to feel by the mother(played by Mary Tyler Moore) that the wrong son lived on. In light of the parents' disapproval over his family life and occupation, it's easy to see how Ryo might feel that mom and dad are projecting on the hapless guest, their disappointment over himself being the only surviving male heir.When Ryota returns home, his parents are long-dead, but now he has a new addition, a daughter, who joins her parents and brother in honoring the grandparents she never met. As he pours water over their tombstone, the moviegoer speculates as to why Ryota finally made peace with his folks. Our eyes turn to the little girl, and we remember the old woman's words. The moviegoer wonders if he agrees with her. The dousing of the tombstones can be read as a son waking up his parents, in order for them see the grandchild they always wanted. Considering how Ryota's parents felt about the widow and stepson, it's somewhat perverse for them to participate in the ceremony. "Aruitemo aruitemo" is very, very Japanese. They're not like American people. They're not ordinary people.