Worth: $18.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Takeru Satoh, Hiroshi Abe, Kaya Kiyohara, Mitsuko Baisho
Intro:
Characters handled with this level of care is impressive, but even more so is being gripped by a film for over two hours until the final revelation in the final scene.
March 11, 2011. A devastating earthquake and tsunami have just hit north-eastern Japan. A frantic man runs through the debris and confusion at a school, searching for his son. Soon after, at a refuge shelter, an elderly woman, a little girl, and a reluctant young man look out through a window frame – not at the devastation, but at the beauty of the sky and stars. A radio is broadcasting: “A message for Ryuji Goto from Ishinomaki City – Grandpa, Grandma, are you OK?”
Jump to 2020. That reluctant young man, Tone (an intense Takeru Sato) is placed in a job by his parole officer. His new boss wants to let Tone go before he’s even started – the boss has a lot of workers with a criminal past, but he draws the line at arsonists.
Jump to a murder scene. A welfare worker has been abducted, bound, left to starve. Sergeant Tomashino (Hiroshi Abe) – the desperate father from the opening scene – is investigating. It’s the first of two such murders in Sendai – a large city near the epicentre of the earthquake, where many disadvantaged people moved to after the 2011 disaster.
The film features incredibly cinematic moments, and the acting is first class. Mitsuko Baisho – a Japanese cinema veteran who’s worked with the legendary Akira Kurosawa – is amazing as Kei, the elderly woman who looked at the stars, and forms a family unit with the orphaned little girl Kan-chan (Misaki Ishii) and the mysterious Tone.
Based on the novel Mamorarenakatta Monotachi e by Shichiri Nakayama, directed by Takahisa Zeze, who made his name in ‘pinku’ (i.e. soft porn) films. Nakayama’s story and Zese’s handling convey a compassion for people – irrespective of the character’s – at times – terrible actions, they are not judged, they are human and deserve understanding.
Characters handled with this level of care is impressive, but even more so is being gripped by a film for over two hours until the final revelation in the final scene. In anyone else’s hands, this might have been a miniseries – there’s enough material – but the story is absorbing, concise and clearly told.
There’s also an unmistakable political point to be made here – about poverty and pride, and Japan’s failure to provide to those in need after the devastating 2011 natural disaster that killed at least 18,500. There are Australians who will relate to this story – natural disasters, inadequate welfare system. Sound familiar?
