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It's a been an amazing season for fans of Japanese cinema here in Chicago. The Mizoguchi retrospective at Doc Films ended in December, and a few weeks later the Gene Siskel Film Center's glorious Yasujiro Ozu retro began. I'm sorry I haven't been able to review any of the Ozus in advance, but I'm seeing most of them for the first time myself. It's been a wonderful experience, and I heartily encourage you to take advantage of the last two weeks of the series. I've heard especially good things about Early Summer (playing this Saturday at 5 p.m. and next Wednesday at 6 p.m.) and An Autumn Afternoon (Sat., Feb. 26 at 3 p.m. and Thurs., Mar. 3 at 6 p.m.). Ozu has a reputation for quiet minimalism, but his films are much more accessible than his reputation suggests. Focusing on inter-generational family dramas, he speaks to the human condition in graceful and beautiful ways.

On the other hand, if you're in the mood for something Japanese but in a more contemporary vein, you have not one but two options this weekend. Hirokazu Kore-eda's Nobody Knows, a family drama of a different kind, starts this Friday at the Music Box theater. Based on a true story, it centers on four children left to fend for themselves. Their mother loves them in a selfish sort of way, but she repeatedly abandons them to chase after other men, leaving the children in their small apartment for longer and longer periods of time. The oldest of the four is Akira (played by Yuya Yagira), who appears to be twelve or thirteen, though the movie isn't specific. He's the only one allowed out of the apartment, since the landlord doesn't allow young children and doesn't realize the others are there (one of the film's funniest scenes shows how the youngest kids arrived packed in two suitcases). So though Akira has tremendous responsibility, he also has the freedom to go outside, where he tries to make friends and flirt with an older girl. Meanwhile, his siblings stand on their tiptoes by the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the outside world.

Kore-eda, who's best known for the metaphysical After Life, offers a much more physical movie this time around. His camera zooms in on the children's faces, their hands, their feet. I didn't realize how much you can tell about a person from their feet until I saw Nobody Knows. Kore-eda's careful attention to detail is brilliant. He's helped enormously by his young cast. The film's press notes discuss how the actors, all non-professionals, worked for months with Kore-eda to get used to each other and to shoot the movie in sequence. Yagira won the Best Actor prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival, and he's richly deserving. His penetrating stare is a marvel, and his way of switching from the "man of the house" to an irresponsible, irrepressible boy is fantastic. Ayu Kitaura, who plays the older sister Kyoko, is equally good in a smaller part.

The film, given its subject matter and setting, has a hermetic feel to it, which grows ever more constricting as tragedy seems to loom. But unlike other children-in-peril movies, Nobody Knows is neither pessimistic nor fatalistic. Yes, it focuses on the children's growing misfortune, but it also celebrates their strength and optimism. It is a stirring film and one well worth your time.   

Your other Japanese option is even more enigmatic. Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Bright Future opens at Facets Multimedia for a one-week engagement beginning Friday. Kurosawa made the elegant and unsettling horror films Cure and Pulse, but Bright Future heads in a different direction. Mamoru (Tadanobu Asano) and Yuji (Jo Odagiri) are two shiftless Tokyo men in their twenties. They both have temporary jobs at a small factory. Mamoru's outside hobby revolves around a poisonous jellyfish he's trying to acclimate to fresh water, while Yuji spends his time at an arcade and bowling alley. But when Mamoru is arrested for murder, Yuji is given the task of taking care of the jellyfish. Along the way, he also gets to know Mamoru's estranged father, and their friendship has a transformative effect on Yuji's life.

Bright Future is shot in a way so that most of the color has been drained out, mimicking the bland, almost lifeless world of the two protagonists. Their alienation from modern society is profound though not necessarily permanent, and one of the movie's themes addresses what might happen to the urban youth of Japan. Kurosawa is also interested in the contrast of dreams and reality. Yuji thinks that his dreams foretell the future, but that induces a passivity which leaves him disconnected from the "real" world. In a stunning scene, Mamoru's father challenges him: "Why can't you face this reality? Because it's scruffy and dirty? How dare you treat this reality with such contempt! This is my reality!"

The most amazing part of Bright Future, though, is its final, spectacular tracking shot--one which features a group of characters who barely appear in the film and yet clearly define and inspire it. And as we watch this long take, the movie's title appears. Is this meant to be an ironic commentary? A declaration of hope? An ambivalent denouement? Fans of open-ended movies that make you think won't want to miss this one. And if you have the time to see both films, you can discuss with your friends why each movie ends with a scene of young friends walking through the streets of Tokyo.  

J. Robert Parks   2/13/2005