The attempt to bring Yasujiro Ozu's "Tokyo Story" (1953) into a new millennium with all its cultural changes, technological updates and mounting family pitfalls is no small feat. And yet Hirokazu Koreeda, coming from such gems as "Maborosi" (1995) or "After Life" (1998), got the seeming impossible just right. By keeping it simple. By showing, and listening. While inspired by the master's work, with a nod here and there, the film eventually stands on its own and draws its own conclusions.
"Still Walking" is another film about family, a Koreeda speciality, shot from a neo-realistic angle with multi-dimensional characters one might find at like-minded western contemporaries offering slice-of-life cinema like Mike Leigh or Ken Loach. In the mix: the generation gap, false hopes and lost dreams, love, grief, resentment, birth discussed, death lingering - it's all part of this intimate portrayal of a middle class Japanese family ranging from innocent five-year olds to the grumpy patriarch. Life is complicated, as are people, and answers are difficult, and sometimes truth has to be ignored by the one or the other, for the sake of being able to cope.
Don't expect a big story here, rather bits and pieces, brought to the forefront by a director who steps back to let people unfold. There's no melodrama, no orchestral music to ensure eyes tearing up, no big stuff, no open confrontations, no surprising twist. This is about ordinary people, and how life goes on, one way or another. Koreeda observes in a subtle, understated, fly-on-the-wall kind of way, and despite or because of the unobtrusive eye of the beholder gets something deep and poignant across that is bigger than single events and, ultimately, bigger than us.
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