Even though the best family films dealt with the awareness of individuals in the private arena of families and family houses (described by the expression home-ism), the ideas of home and family are closely interconnected with the outer world. The micro-world of a family has always reflected the major changes in Japanese society



Exactly sixty years ago Yasujiro Ozu, in his manifest family film Early Spring (Soshun), dealt with the theme of anxiety from (the break-up of a) family. Daughter Noriko does not want to give up her life as a single girl and start a family. The reasons for her “unnatural” rebellion remain a mystery and are not revealed by Ozu’s directing style or Setsuko Hara’s acting. Portrayal of the closeness between father and daughter, an unrealized relationship with the father’s assistant, Hattori, the young woman’s firm conservatism or perhaps her radical individualism are all equally intense. From the perspective of the former patriarchal family system, Tadao Sato points out: “The daughter becomes like her mother and by giving her that role Ozu tries to fulfill the emptiness caused by the loss of the father’s identity.”

For decades, Japanese family film dealt with its own emptiness. In recent years, in many thematically different films, one may notice reflections on different, more relaxed kinds of communities: hybrid types of families. Often there is no real family but rather a utopian family of the future that appeared in the aftermath of modern anxieties and disillusionment with traditional family values. “Life goes on”, say the new post-family films such as Aruitemo aruitemo / Still Walking (2008) by Hirokazu Koreeda and Tokyo Sonata (2008) by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

In this year’s exciting traveling program of the Japanese Foundation, the films are inspired by symptoms of the “death” or abandonment of families in their dual private and public roles in the world. However, the characters haven’t the time to mourn; living in the space between nostalgia and the future, they deal with the consequences of secrets and lies (Bokunchi/ My House, Junji Sakamoto, 2002; Kuchu teien/Hanging Gardens, Toshiaki Toyoda, 2005), religious fanaticism (Kanaria/Canary, Akihiko Shiota), war (Garasu no usagi/Glass Rabbit, Setsuko Shibuichi, 2005), racial/minority (Pacchigi/We Shall Overcome Someday, Kazuyuki Izutsu) and sexuality (Hush! Ryosuke Hashiguchi, 2001) discrimination, sickness/euthanasia (Han-ochi/Half a Confession, Kiyoshi Sasabe, 2004), growing-up (Majo no takkyubin/Kiki's Delivery Service, Hayao Miyazaki, 1989). At first glance an eclectic selection of films about memories and fear of the future encompasses two anime films, war and family drama (Glass Rabbit) and an SF tale about one girl’s coming of age, yearning for freedom and dwelling in memories of her parents’ home (Kiki's Delivery Service).

The basic division of Japanese cinema into the genres of films with historical themes jidai geki and contemporary film, gendai geki, which flourished twenty years later in the Kamata Studios of the Shochiku production house, brought on a sense of bi-polar reality; inner and outer, public and private, the material space of the house and home as an imaginary space situated anywhere. On the other hand historical films, with their characters of masterless ronin samurai, yakuza gamblers, outlaws and outcasts, developed the concept of a nomadic way of life eternally in movement.

Even though the best family films dealt with the awareness of individuals in the private arena of families and family houses (described by the expression home-ism), the ideas of home and family are closely interconnected with the outer world. The micro-world of a family has always reflected the major changes in Japanese society.

Japanese post-family film is no longer just connected to the concept of the house and its static and private space. It has become nomadic. The key archetype of the Japanese historical film was a drifter whose remains were his first and last stop on the way to his home.
Matatabi, the biography of a drifter, was one of the first types of the early historical film and today its children roam the cities of Japanese post-family film.

What would have happened had not Noriko refused to play her family role? “She would have continued to live”, alludes Akihiko Shiota at the end of Canary, the most intriguing film in this program. (Tanja Vrvilo)