Still Walking (Aruitemo aruitemo) (2008)
In a small coastal town, the Yokoyama family has gathered to commemorate the death of their oldest son, Junpei, who drowned in an act of heroism several years earlier. In the events of a twenty-four hour period, we are shown what seem at first to be just mundane family activities and rituals... the things any family does... cooking, eating, talking, walking, staying the night with grandparents... but something is afoot here. Old tensions and resentments are simmering, and it becomes clear to us as we gradually get to know them well, that the Yokoyamas are a deeply wounded family, with intense heartache never far from the surface of the things they do and say.
Dr. Yokoyama, the patriarch, is a retired doctor whose sense of worth seems to have been tied to his profession, so much so that he resents that his surviving son, Ryota, has not chosen the same line of work. Ryota, feeling little love from his autocratic father, has grown to hate these family gatherings and tries to limit them to once a year. But he dutifully comes a good distance to stay over, bringing along his new bride, a widow, and her young son whose love for his own deceased father causes him to be reticent in fully embracing his new one. Trying to hide the fact too that he's currently unemployed doesn't allow Ryota to feel any more at ease, while his new wife senses that she is very much "on view" as she struggles to make a good impression. The Yokoyama daughter, Chinami, has also come with her two youngsters and her affable husband who, while showing an apparent ease of relationship in his dealings with his in-laws, is secretly viewed as a bit of a slacker... perhaps not worthy of having married their only girl. Mrs. Yokoyama, the doctor's wife presides over the gathering from her kitchen, and it is there that we experience how much food and eating together bonds a family. In some of the loveliest scenes, the director lingers over the preparation and sharing of simple meals - the communal chore of chopping vegetables together, cooking corn tempura, snacking on carry-in sushi, busting open a watermelon ( a task left to the children)... and it is often in these scenes when the family is shown most at ease that we become aware of the tense dynamic that rules and sometimes separates them.
In a visit to the missing son's grave, high above the town, we experience through the actions of common rituals, placing flowers, the Japanese custom of cooling the stone with water, brief prayer, how much the little things we retain and cherish through repeated action define us and give our lives meaning. The simple act of a family walking together, the mysterious appearance of a yellow butterfly after the family returns home, the visit of the boy, now a young man, whom the missing son saved from drowning that day, so long ago... all are presented with an unusual delicacy and we find ourselves deeply moved at odd moments. Elements of hope and longing and loss resonate within each of us, as this small masterpiece so touchingly illustrates.
A film of unusual beauty, well-acted by all the principals, "Still Walking" is poetic in it's depictions of the love and missed opportunity for love that can make our lives tragic and yet transcendently heroic, full of lost dreams and secret desires and a hope that motivates us to keep on. The title refers to an old pop song that Grandma listens to in her private moments. At one point she asks her son to play it on the phonograph. Someone points out that we all have a secret song that we remember at odd moments and play when we're alone. Nostalgia for remembered days, the lost past, can be a strong emotion, one that can be as binding as a silk rope, one that keeps us perhaps from moving forward, a weight we must carry, or perhaps the hidden light that keeps away the encompassing darkness and allows us to hold on. We are after all still alive, still chasing butterflies, still walking...
No comments:
Post a Comment