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 The
Yokoyamas gather at the family home, coming together to commemorate the
sad anniversary of the day their eldest son died while saving a drowning
child. The younger son, Ryota, brings his wife and her son from a
previous marriage for a very infrequent visit to the house in Yokohama.
Ryota is keenly aware of the tensions and booby traps inherent to any
trip to see his caustic mother and permanently disapproving father and
does all he can to avoid them year round, but there is no avoiding this
occasion. Ryota’s discomfort in the presence of his father is not
something that has ebbed over time and his decision not to take up his
fallen brother’s role as successor to their father’s medical career
hangs over their relationship like a black cloud. The esteem with which
the Yokoyama sire is held around their hometown only adds to Ryota’s
sense of having let him down. Their dialog throughout the visit is
stiff and cold, never breaking the surface of general niceties on the
few occasions the men speak at all. Indeed, at the first sign of any
disturbance to his carefully ordered routine, Yokoyama senior can be
counted on to immediately vacate the premises for the sanctity of his
office, or a long stroll about the neighbourhood. Mama Yokoyama is
possessed of much more subtle ways of making her feelings known;
backhanded compliments and off-the-cuff remarks that would normally be
dismissed as old wives’ chatter find their marks wherever she lets the
daggers fly, usually without the victim knowing if they should be
laughing or hurt. Some of those on the receiving end of her roundabout
barbs include her daughter-in-law, who has always worried that she would
never truly be accepted into the family being a divorcee with a young
son, only to discover on this visit her suspicions might be
well-founded. Mama-san Dearest ever so sweetly dispels her son’s wife
of any notion that she would welcome any grandchildren from their
union. More insidious is Mrs. Yokoyama’s ulterior motives behind her
annual invitation to the surviving victim of her son’s accident to
attend the annual memorial gatherings for his saviour. His yearly
obligation to visit the Yokoyamas and light incense for their lost son
causes the young man no end of discomfort, which is obvious to all and
small justice for the grieving mother.
Don’t let its languid
beginning and leisurely pace fool you, director Hirokazu Kore-eda lights
boxes of fireworks within the frame of a single day inside a family
home. There are no melodramatic familial explosions; the excitement is
in the dialog, which spotlights humourous situations common in every
household and moments heavy with the simmering tensions of all the
recriminations, justified and otherwise, that parents, children and
siblings never say. All of this is delivered in most genteel and
circumspect tones of a clan of older parents and their grown children
along with their own families, all trying to get along for the day.
Every actor is rock solid; Hiroshi Abe conveys the right amount of
resigned frustration as the son who will never be good enough to receive
his dad’s approval, segueing into a tender acceptance at the discovery
that even his monolith of a father must get old some time.
Singer/actress You plays the dutiful daughter with an almost preening
pride at being the one closest to the parents, but takes for granted
that she understands her place in the future of the family home.
Veteran actor Yoshio Harada has precious few words of dialog in Still
Walking and doesn’t really need the ones he has to steal his scenes as
the irascible head of the Yokoyama family. His grouchiness in the face
of this yearly invasion of loud children and grandchildren is hilarious,
as is his self-satisfaction after discovering a secret bond with Ryota’s
aloof, precocious stepson. An imposing figure, his impotence in the
middle of a medical emergency later in the film is particularly poignant
as his last point of pride, his neighbourhood standing, is shaken. As
fine as Harada’s performance is, the film really belongs to Kirin Kiki
as the Yokoyama mother. The actress deftly reels off deadly verbal
slings and arrows that have the advantage of coming from the ignored,
underestimated source of the mother, who by virtue being ever-present is
invisible to her family. Cunning as a CIA agent, the deceptively
mundane rituals enforced on her family and others are filled with
Shakespearian agendas. Mother Yokoyama’s pain and eternal grief at the
loss of her firstborn is carefully hidden as she carries out an
indomitable will with sweet-faced passive aggression. Her explanation
of why she insists that the young man her son died fifteen years ago to
save must be corralled back to Yokohama year after year is chilling. It
is possibly the only time this woman has ever let her anger at the
circumstances of her son’s death show and Kiki elevates the scene to the
level of Greek tragedy. Her heartbreak and rage as she nonchalantly
reveals her motives is hypnotic and completely compelling. Kore-eda
brings out more bombast in the quiet of a living room than I’ve seen
from all this year’s summer blockbusters combined.
Mesmerising and lyrical, Still
Walking is a triumph of mood and storytelling imbued with some of this
year’s finest performances.
~ The Lady Miz Diva
August 28th, 2009
PS: Click here for our
interview with Still Walking director Hirokazu Kore-eda
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