หมายเหตุ : เป็นบทความที่เขียนส่งวิชา Film and Theatre Appreciation ควรหลีกเลี่ยงหากเป็นคนที่จะอารมณ์เสียเมื่ออ่านภาษาอังกฤษห่วยๆ และอ้อ อีกอย่างคือมันยาวโคตร (ปกติชอบเขียนสั้นๆอ่ะ แต่เค้าบังคับให้เขียนสองหน้า แต่ปรากฏว่าเขียนไปเขียนมากลับเป็นสามหน้า เอาเข้าไป)

 

 

It was once said that before a good director turns into the great one, he must have master pieced his own family-themed movie first. In the passing year 2008, director Akira Kurosawa (commonly famous for his Japanese horror movies) had settled out a movie about one broken family that was even scarier than any of his ghosts, Tokyo Sonata. Not long after, the other favorite director of mine—Hirokazu Kore-eda—produced another mesmerizing story about rural lives of a big family, Still Walking. And in the same year, director Ryosuke Hashigushi declared his come back with honor by sending out All Around Us (which, well, might not completely be a family movie, but I’ll count it as one).

 

Director Hashiguchi played an important role in the world of Japanese cinema. He was an openly gay director who directed a gay movie Like Grains of Sand (1995), a movie that opened a new vision of gay cinema in Japan. His next work, Hush! (2001), was where he still clinging onto stories of gay relationship, but extended to a more mature one. Then after 7 years of hiatus, Hashiguchi return with a movie about a marriage life of a normal lover.

  

 

 

 

All Around Us deliberately examined the relationship of a wife, Shoko (Tae Kimura) and husband, Kanao (Lily Franky, the writer of another tears-caller hits movie, Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad) for 7 years. They are a couple with totally distinctive personality, habits, and perspectives. Shoko is a kind of strict and bossy woman who marked the Xs on the calendar as the night for them to have sex. Kanao, on the other hand, is a kind of loosely-lousy person who initially flirts around with the female customers at his shoe repairing shop. When they once talked about a traffic light, Shoko insists that she would stop for the red light, but Kanao argued that he would goes through it. It was obvious that the only thing that drawn each of them together could only of been love.

 

The movie started at the time in 1993 where their couple life was still tasty. Shoko works in a small publishing company, while Kanao have his own little shoe repairing shop. Shoko laughs out loud when she discussed about marriage relationship with a massager. Kanao has a drink with his old friend who offers him a new job called the court artist as a preparation of higher savings for their coming newborn. They went out for a dinner with Shoko’s brother for some time, and year 1993 ends happily that way.

 

In the beginning of 1994, we see the shrine of the dead baby in their house without knowing any cause. Kanao still works as a drawer at the court and he’s starting to get use to it, whereas Shoko is having schizophrenia (major depression) and faces problem at her work. At the same time of projecting a staggering relationship of both people, the movie also reflexes the situation in Japan through each trail Kanao attends. They’re real situations that show the cruelty of the society such as a child murderer (Trail for murder of a preschool girl, Trail for a murder of a kindergartener), business corruption (Trail for manslaughter in the conduct of business), trail of prostitution, a Kobe earthquake, and up onto serious case of a culture club rebel (Trail for calt sub gas attack train). During this, Shoko is facing an interior pain at home. She is in confusion, starting to see a psychologist, and the house is getting messy. Kanao is, too, facing a pain, but it’s the exterior pain that he faces each day he goes to work. The camera often captures Kanao’s face during each trail, it is the time when he sees the pains of other people, couldn’t do a thing about it, then think back about himself.

 

 

 

 

 

Then it’s the many details in the story that is stirring the wound to be even more painful. One night when Kanao is back from work, he sees the uncooked rice splattered all round the kitchen sink. Shoko becomes more sensitive and easily shaken by any mistreats. When a co-worker of Kanao talks about his daughter and asks him whether he has one, Kanao answers without any hesitation “I don’t have a child.” It seems like Kanao want to forget all those things and move on (considering he’s a carefree person), which is in a different manner with Shoko who wants to clear things up, but she doesn’t know how. Kanao could only watch and observe Shoko carefully from afar, which that makes him feel guilty. Adversely, Shoko has that same guilt of failing to bear Kanao a child too when she find the sketches of the baby by him and quietly breaks into tears

 

The marriage issues do have connection to Shoko’s family. Shoko’s brother also has a family. He is a talkative businessman with two children and a weird wife who only wears warm suits. It should rather be that a person like Shoko should be in a more success marriage than her brother, but it hits hard when her brother had it better than her (from a social's point of view - stable montly pays and a complete family members). Kanao’s mom is an old irresponsible-liked woman, but as the movie goes on we know the reasons why. The mother was dumped by her run away husband, which also makes Shoko a child with a family problem since she was young.

 

Except from Lily Franky’s chilling and deadpan acting as his good debut, Kimura’s acting was stunning (she received the best actress award). There’s a great impact on either when she burst out her emotion or when she quietly looks at something sadly. She perfectly conveys the feelings of a lost and loose mother/wife on the edge of “being” and “living a life”. Impressive scenes are the scene when she run into a child in a bookstore and then breaks down. Another one, of course, is the scene when she has a fight with her husband. A long take of an uncomfortable and suffocating situation is another thing that Hashiguchi does well. I’ve first experienced it from a kiss scene between two teenage boys in Like Grains of Sand. One boy falls in love with another, they stand facing each other, the boy asks the one he likes to kiss him, and then hug him, but the other boy don’t know what to do, or what to do next, and 7 minutes of incommodiousness and awkwardness goes on like that. Back to our movie, where the fight scene is the highest point of the movie, Shoko’s temper eruption at this moment shows that her character had already travels pass through something. The sending and receiving of dialogues and feelings between the two are very naturalistic and compelling. A lot of normal lines that we could find in our real lives are unbelievably quotable:

1] Shoko: I’m starting to wonder why are you still here with me?
    Kanao: Because I love you, that’s why I want to be with you    

2] Kanao:  Ignore the people who hate you, and love the one that loves you.

3] Kanao: You don’t have to do things right, just stay here with me.

 

 

 

 

If it was to be the other movie of another director, he would probably cut the scene at one point of argument, but Hashiguchi didn’t do that. He lets us flow along with the stream of likelihood. “I want to kiss you, but your nose is running, so…”, says Kanao after the fight cool down, it is not a kind of pretentious reconciled, that’s why it’s good.

 

After tense part of the movie passes, Shoko tries to move on by attending the tea ceremony and drawing pictures. Her development could be seen by the flowers she draws; the longer she draws, the more blossoms the flower would be. Kanao begins to get use to the restatement of his marriage, and every lives move on. No more spilled rice in the kitchen sink, the cooked, hot rice is ready to be served.

 

 

 

 

When I had a conversation with one of my senior friend and I said something like “this is a good movie, but I like ‘Like Grains of Sand’ more”. Her reply was “I prefer this one better, I think ‘Like Grains of Sand’ was a bit too ‘music video’, I don’t know, like it tried too hard.”

 

I don’t know that the outcome of that conversation results from I’m being too young to understand the complicate relationships of a mature couple, while my friend already had the experience or not. But then, as I watched the movie again to collect the details that were missed out, I realizes why. It had never been before, a movie that handle the relationships of couple this realistically and professionally. Every single bit of it was being taking care of thoughtfully. The journey of love and humanism of this 10 years observation of a couple through this movie is like a life stimulant filled in a medicine capsule.  

 

I don’t know what happen to this director with his 7 years of disappearance, but he had done his homework well. Maybe he could have face something tragic and uses it as energy of breeding this movie. This “so Japanese” slice of life drama that could lie among many other films, but then lucky enough to find a chance to pops up by its own quiet but powerful affection. I’m now convinced that Hashiguchi doesn’t need any medicine during his other long vacation anymore, because as he distributes it through this movie, his capsule would still be filled.