Sophie Bai

I want to begin with Beijing’s recent weather circumstances, even though such talking about weather isn’t an enticing option... I can feel that my health condition hasn’t been well recently, because there are some negative respiratory symptoms happening on me. I really missed my hometown recently despite the fact that the winter there isn’t welcoming as well, but at least I can breathe fresh air in Chongqing.

In the afternoon, I finished the movie that I had watched the first half yesterday, it is called Nobody Knows directed by Hirokazu Koreeda. I only watched one of his films named Like Father, Like Son, and I felt profoundly touched by that. It is said that Hirokazu is another Yasujiro Otsu. But as a layman of these two masters’ movies, I suppose that there are several oblivious differences between them, say, the choices of camera.

There is a famous saying goes: watch a country’s movie, and you’ll like the country itself. However, after watching Nobody Knows, I didn’t want to try to live in Japan (well, traveling is cool.), settling into their lifestyle. Maybe because I’ve lived in this crowded city so long that a kind of resentment would sprout underneath as long as I saw places thronged with people. Hirokazu’s films try to depict the realistic life and people relationships, just like the epitome of contemporary Japanese society. It sounds like a kind of dull or even cruel, but these are the one which can stand the test of time - the transparent formations of life.

Actually, I don’t want to spoil the main plots here because that would make my moods sink, and I believe that many people, give or take, have already watched it or at least know its story background, it is based on a real-life case and you can find the ‘details’ on wiki. Even until now, I still cannot imagine that such heartless mother has lived in the real world, abandoning her children ruthlessly. In Nobody Knows, the mother speaks with a childish feature, probably showing that she is in an abnormal status, or kind of schizophrenic.

Every details, including the dialogues and the acting, made me feel sad and moody. Unlike Barton Fink using a romantic climax to express a playwright’s desperate endeavors, this one is very direct and calm. We know that the ‘real’ end of this story should be that the mother was accused for child abandonment and the eldest brother was sent to the specialized school because of participating crime (and juvenile delinquency), but this movie ends before it, giving the audience an impression that these children are still on their way. I think compared to choosing the real ending, director’s method appeared wiser, because the scene of dailiness generated an intensive contrast with the cruelty and hopelessness of their following days, and make the audience to concern about this case.

In actuality, Yuki’s accident has a crueler cause and Akira was not so responsible and disciplined, therefore their life should have been more tragic. To the contrary, Hirokazu aimed at showing the eldest child’s merits and their hopes of lives (which is a kind of ignorance that made that characters more tragic). From my perspective I think that this movie is very success, albeit you need a strong heart to bear the emotions from it.