"Nobody Knows" (Language - Japanese) (2004) - Movie Review

When the film itself draws unimaginable pain and sympathy, it is far more shocking and intolerable to think there was an actual event, the film origins upon. In late 1980’s Japan, a mother abandoned her children to live with her new love and I will let you to see the film and then read about it. It is one of the most tragic films I have ever seen and the one which affected a lot on emotional level. While I certainly do not appreciate much of film which does not carry some sort of experience to be grasped upon, I feel this is a story to be told and to be heard by every one.

Akira (Yûya Yagira) is an automatic responsible 12 year old brother you would have seen in among the road side homeless children. Here he takes care of his siblings Kyoko (Ayu Kitauru), Shigeru (Hiei Kimura) and the young Yuki (Momoko Shimizu). They arrive with their mother Keiko (You) in to new apartment in Tokyo. Keiko introduces only him to the landlord and we do not even see the rest of the kids. Then once they move all their things, the suitcases open and kids come out laughing and giggling. The scene is cute, because we forget the gravity of how they transported over by their faces full of innocence and happiness. We see the immediate big brother caring Akira shows and his second in command Kyoto understanding him.

Keiko appears to be loved by the kids including the well aware Akira. It is an unexplained biological and spiritual explanation only the unknown can describe as this unconditional love between a kid and its parents. Both know nothing about each other and still the trust, belief and the affection takes enormous chronic betrayal to break that bond. Keiko does it without any effort and frowns at Akira when he confronts her of being selfish. Keiko while with the kids does not abuse them rather appear as honestly loving them. But we come to know that each kid has different father. These are not the responsibility she hoped for and more of mistakes. She does not reveal any of them except Akira so that they do not need to be sent to school.

Akira with the money Keiko left behaves as if nothing happened. Surprisingly the other kids are not surprised either. It is a usual happening for them. Only this time, her return is questionable. Akira knows it and even when he finds out where Keiko is working, he does not want to tell his siblings. He does not want one another disappointment. He wants to be done with these cheatings once and for all. Soon, the money evaporates and the bills pile up. In the midst of this, Akira in the desire of wanting to enjoy the boyhood life gets the friendship of rich kids who just use him as an easy prey for getting games and playing indefinitely at his house. The house maintained by him goes filthy and unmanaged.

If the film would have been melodramatic which for every reason it could have been, I could have blamed it for being so cheap and exploitive, then get on with it. Director Hirokazu Koreeda unmercifully gives the brutal natural feel which just gets too much as the film goes. It is not easy to digest a film like this and when it comes to review, it gets even tougher. When things happen with some one not directly to blame and innocence is shredded into pieces, it is heart breaking.

How did they manage to be unnoticed and unsuspicious for such a period of time? In this busy world with life confined within four walls, everything is unnoticeable. I live in an apartment complex and still do not know who lives above me. Where does the line lies in between respecting privacy and watching out for each other? I exactly do not know but that would have helped a lot for those children.

Koreeda uses props of natural progression to depict time. The long hair of the kids, the plants seeded by them in the ready made noodles cup (which is how their food necessity gets satisfied) growing and creeping on the rails, stains on the floor getting thicker and older are some of those subtle techniques employed. The dialogues are terse and astonishingly the kid’s unemotional sullen faces exactly bring out what would have been the scenario in real life. The score by the guitarist duo Gontiti provides the melancholic cuteness of these unguided angels. It would have been a monumental task to make these small actors express themselves. Yûya Yagira and his sibling actors’ chemistry is natural and just knocks us out on how grasping and talented are they.

I did not watch “Requiem for a Dream” for a long time due to its nature of content and the depressing tone it ends on. I managed to watch it and felt miserable. Here is “Nobody Knows” where we are tied to our materialistic comfort to watch a family of four kids dismantle slowly and in a hurting reality of life. Destitute and despair surround these kids who got conditioned to these desolation and hence it depresses even more when it keeps on getting worse.