After The Storm (12A.)
Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda
Starring Hiroshi Abe, Yôko Maki, Taiyo Yoshizawa, Satomi Kobayashi, Lily Frankie and Kirin Kiki. In Japanese with subtitles. 118 mins
I have a problem with dramas about compulsive gamblers, and their mug punter protagonists. To watch a man shoot himself in the foot once might be entertaining, but over and over again, and with such martyred piety, is no fun at all. So I had limited for sympathy for Shinoda Ryôta (Abe), a novelist and private detective who is attempting some kind of reconciliation with his son (Yoshizawa) and his ex-wife (Maki) but keeps frittering away the money he should be spending on child support.
Koreeda has built up an international reputation for quiet, understated dramas that ever so gently dig up real emotions. You wouldn't exactly describe his body of work as The Storm but this is one definitely feels like its After. For the first hour the film is bitty and aimless but there is a pay off: the final third is an extended set piece in which the arrival of a Typhoon forces the estranged family to spend the night together at the flat of Shinoda's mother (Kiki.) Here the themes of disappointment being passed down the generation find elegant and moving expression.
The acting is first rate. The tall, willowy and unshaven Hiroshi Abe looks like a western leading man, a bit Eastwood or Pete Fonda, but one that is wracked with self doubt. The star turn though is Kirin Kiki as the granny. (She was equally beguiling in Sweet Bean.) I think she is the world's top granny actress: she is all the things movie granny's are supposed to be – wise, funny, a little bit cantankerous – but in ways you just don't expect.
Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda
Starring Hiroshi Abe, Yôko Maki, Taiyo Yoshizawa, Satomi Kobayashi, Lily Frankie and Kirin Kiki. In Japanese with subtitles. 118 mins
I have a problem with dramas about compulsive gamblers, and their mug punter protagonists. To watch a man shoot himself in the foot once might be entertaining, but over and over again, and with such martyred piety, is no fun at all. So I had limited for sympathy for Shinoda Ryôta (Abe), a novelist and private detective who is attempting some kind of reconciliation with his son (Yoshizawa) and his ex-wife (Maki) but keeps frittering away the money he should be spending on child support.
Koreeda has built up an international reputation for quiet, understated dramas that ever so gently dig up real emotions. You wouldn't exactly describe his body of work as The Storm but this is one definitely feels like its After. For the first hour the film is bitty and aimless but there is a pay off: the final third is an extended set piece in which the arrival of a Typhoon forces the estranged family to spend the night together at the flat of Shinoda's mother (Kiki.) Here the themes of disappointment being passed down the generation find elegant and moving expression.
The acting is first rate. The tall, willowy and unshaven Hiroshi Abe looks like a western leading man, a bit Eastwood or Pete Fonda, but one that is wracked with self doubt. The star turn though is Kirin Kiki as the granny. (She was equally beguiling in Sweet Bean.) I think she is the world's top granny actress: she is all the things movie granny's are supposed to be – wise, funny, a little bit cantankerous – but in ways you just don't expect.
