There are not many directors whose films I greet with enthusiasm, let alone Japanese ones. I think Hirokazu Koreeda is the only one. His films are a different breed - simple in design, but brilliant in architecture and sublime in closure.
Koreeda is the leading exponent in contemplative cinema. Under his minimalist approach, the essence of familial life and couplehood is distilled into abstract thoughts lingering like warm tendrils wrapped around your mind. The movie may be over but it refuses leave the confines of your consciousness and you would want to surrender to its warm lull again. The tone of After the Storm is pitch-perfect - nobody screams in your face, there are no pointing fingers, no low brow soap-opera. The acting is exquisite and nuanced. What is not said speaks louder than what is uttered. There is humour of the familiar kind; it is the kind of humour you laughed heartily because it is so familiar and you recognise the situations because you have gone through them before. There are not many filmmakers who are as sensitive as Koreeda. Above all else, this is a director who listens to characters' inner thoughts and emotions like an old master piano tuner and he knows how to calibrate the performances for everlasting emotional heft. For Koreeda, it is always about the small moments leading to the big truths.
After the Storm is not one of Koreeda's best films (it needlessly took too long to establish Ryota's character) but it easily transcends way above all the flashy films that inundate our cinemas like ants to candies. I wish I had a notebook last night because some of the metaphors are amazing. Here is one, asseverated by the grandmother Yoshiko, "The longer a stew sits, the more flavour it develops, just like people."
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