rahul-sah089
I like this movie. It is having a tragic end which is going to stay with you forever. The movie depicts the charming love story of Snehamoy, a mild manner school teacher staying in the outskirts of Suderbans(a village in West Bengal) and a girl faraway in a Japanese village who start out as pen-pals,fall in love and remain in long distance relationship for almost 17 years without meeting each other.Their romance unfolds through series of letters and occasional phone call.Surely this movie will evoke emotion within you."The Japanese Wife", being made by Aparna Sen, one of India's top art-house filmmakers, is the latest in a trend to showcase the lives and emotions of ordinary people in contrast to Bollywood's traditional offerings of fluffy romances or violent dramas.
johnnyboyz
I've little doubt that Aparna Sen has produced his 2010 film The Japanese Wife with the best of intentions; the piece covering the exploits of two people and the love they share across a vast distance, without ever actually being able to meet. The film aims for swooping; sweeping; love-lorn imbued romance of grandeur proportions that it believes will have a greater effect on its audience than it does in reality, a piece covering those sharing a seemingly impossible tie across such a great distance and yet having the maintaining of such a relationship look later like the least of each of their respective woes. What it more often than not resembles, however, is a trite; television disease movie of the week - a film that has all but lost us by the end as little more than a contrived and limply made drama, sickly easing its way from sentimental set piece to set piece as these people come together to softly spoken narration and warmly lit locales.The film covers that of young Indian Snehamoy (Bose), a single gentleman with a penchant for maths whom lives alone with his cat on a rural patch of land in a village not too far from a more hustling, bustling town of activity. Snehamoy latches onto a system encompassing long distance relationships with other pen-pals – people of whom wish to exchange letters and so on; a sort of lonely hearts club for people wanting to look abroad or over a longer distance for potential love and kinship. With this arrives the (eventual) titular Japanese wife, named Miyage (Takaku), as well as the long distance relationship that makes up the crux of the film. It's here, despite the modern setting, the film rejects the notion of more contemporarised means of communications; settling for pen and paper over e-mail or social networking and thus gambling on etching as much effect as possible out of such means – a gamble I was wanting to come through, but doesn't. With it, we are to suspend our belief that, despite Japan being somewhat of a hub for global technology – technology encompassing annoying innovations that actually make it easier for one to communicate, the Japanese based Miyage will engage in the premise that she does for ideas and thought exchange.It is established Snehamoy has already beaten malaria on three separate occasions, so the man is a fighter or someone used to striving on through relatively tough, testing times; the film really kicking off when Miyage arrives on the scene and the exchanges begin in earnest. The plot, suffice to say there barely is one, consists of Snehamoy and Miyage exchanging letters and getting along relatively swimmingly amidst the relationship Snehamoy shares with his aunt, with whom he sees eye to eye more often than not. That's it, that's practically the entire story. The bond works too quickly between Snehamoy and his Japanese contact, they fall in love over one another's written word and exchange marriage vows before maintaining that trust across fifteen years; the leap forwards providing the audience with little in the way of time to allow for their marriage to resonate and falsifying the naturalistic feel to their ties the film aims for.Around it, a meaningless and entirely fruitless exercise in melodramatics transpires; two people getting along wonderfully well, but kept apart by the distance between them, continuing to exchange letters and continuing their lives made tougher only by the fact social interaction with others is difficult. They deduce travelling to see one another is challenging, the exchange rate between the Japanese and Indian currencies rather vast and yet at no point does Miyage ever offer to pay for Snehamoy's air-fare for a bond that is supposedly so intense. The Indian telephone lines down at Snehamoy's end are usually rife with demons, making communication there quite tough and keeping the written word the only means through which to communicate. Letters are sent and letters are received; and then more letters are sent and then the damn things are narrated, because static shots of pieces of paper for long durations I guess isn't interesting; and we wonder if these people are really eloquent enough to put down the things they write or whether we are hearing a screenwriter's fifth draft of a hodge-podge script.Later, Snehamoy has what can only be described as a "kite-off" with some fellow Indians whilst using the Japanese kites his wife has sent him. Snehamoy, being as qualified in mathematics as he is, and with that coming the required knowledge in sums; volume; mass and formulae, is able to have this "kite-off" on a day in which there is very little wind – work that one out. These fellow Indians, whose own kites see them label the contest one of national pride, induce antagonism against Snehamoy because of his tryst with Miyage; sources of antagonism which stand alone and unchallenged in what is a fairly interesting area for such things, one of which might have seen the exploring of ill-judged prejudices people have against both inter-racial relations and cross-cultural bonds. Surprisingly, Sen backs off from such a thematic; instead offering us flat, banal alternatives.Later on, Snehamoy's aunt, whom through some convoluted means, introduces a young woman to proceedings; a female character that appears to fall at Snehamoy's feet and comes equipped with a daughter Snehamoy bonds well with. However she, like us, can only continue to observe Snehamoy stick to some undying principal that has him loyal to his Japanese wife of a decade-plus; the whole thing feeling like an odd glorification of speeding up one's romantic ties, through whatever means, when the waiting and allowing natural enough processions to play out with those in proximity to you, and to what would have been a charming scenario of romance with this new woman, appearing evident. Stale; repetitive and really rather misjudged in the places it goes, The Japanese Wife is one to skip.
denpolites
The film is excellent. I don't clasify it as a romantic film. I think it's a film about human relationships and values. People from western (the so-called 'developted') countries, cannot even understand the behavior in such societies. So you may read some comments that the film is not ...realistic (!), or so. Hollywood film watchers have totally lost the ability to understand a piece of art. The first think that comes to mind is that money in such societies is not the goal but just a mean. Kindness, generosity. support etc prevail. Love is pure and without expecting something in return. This is not the exception but the rule. This is not something artificial, as people in west may think. It's a result of the social construction, (the lack of capitalism if you prefer a political or economical term). If seen under this perspective everything is easily understood: Why the aunt is so supportive, the devotion that Snehamoy has to his 'wife', the attitude of the widow, both against Snehamoy and his 'wife', at the end of the film. The directing is pretty good, and so I think for the acting. I really enjoyed and I heartily recommend it.
