For Reel

Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda

The connection has become tiresome, but I will rehash: Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Still Walking” confirms Kore-eda as the most likely heir to the legendary Yasujiro Ozu. This film, which has drawn similarities with Ozu’s masterful “Tokyo Story”, is methodically paced and elegantly composed. Shots linger for a greater time than an American audience might expect, but it’s in those moments that the film generates it’s power – it’s our breathing room, the space for us to fully consider the on-screen family and our own.

“Still Walking” concerns the reunion of three generations of a Japanese family. The grandparents are Kyohei (Yoshio Harada), a now retired physician who only seems to take pleasure in his ritualistic walk, and Toshiko (Kirin Kiki), his wife who fulfills all of the classical expectations of her gender – she cooks and cleans, but still retains enough of a backbone to tease back at her grouch of a husband.

The occasion is the fifteen anniversary of the death of their son, Junpei, who drowned while saving a child. Junpei’s brother, Ryota (Hiroshi Abe), is inviting his wife, Yukari (Yui Natsukawa), and son (Shohei Tanaka) to the commemoration. Completing the gathering is Ryota’s sister, Chinami (You), her husband, Nobuo (Kazuya Takahaski), and their two young children.

A contemporary audience would expect that this exposition might lead to fireworks. Tempers will flare, shields will be broken, tears will be had. “Still Walking” never loses sight of it’s almost aggressively calm developments, however. Each exchange is a minor, awkward confrontation. Kore-eda spells absolutely nothing out for us – we get to know the family, and the ways they think of one another, by only the subtle hints throughout.

Having seen a one-time screening of “Still Walking” at a local theater, I was infuriated to know I couldn’t revisit it immediately. The ending of the film, even the last thirty minutes, is as delicately revealing as anything i’ve seen all year. There’s a brilliant moment in which Kyohei expresses that their children will likely visit for New Years, and then Kore-eda cuts to Ryota saying that once-a-year visits are appropriate enough. Such scenes are a crushing examination of the indescribable relationship between parents and children – the intermittent patterns of love and neglect.