Our Little Sister: A Tenderness Towards People
I’ve always loved the later films of Yasujiro Ozu. Specially I mean the series of seasonal films he made beginning with Late Spring (1949) and ending with An Autumn Afternoon, Ozu’s final film made in 1963. Late Spring is a particular favorite, a black-and-white masterpiece that I return to almost every spring, always waiting to see if the gentle, absent-minded, scholarly father will actually trick his loving and beautiful daughter into getting married, despite her desire to remain unmarried so that she can take care of him. And when he always does, I marvel at how it seems as much like a sacrifice for love by the father as it does a sacrifice of independence for his daughter.
In this series of films, Ozu explores the changing relationships between parents and children in a rapidly modernizing Japan. Yet as much as these films are about changes over time. They are also timeless. Ozu’s style and especially the compositional and film techniques used in the seasonal series are a major reason he is considered a master filmmaker and the most Japanese of the country’s major directors. As a viewer there are three things that attract me to Ozu’s seasonal films: his seemingly simple but beautifully observed stories about generation conflict and change in families, especially between parents and children; his wonderfully shot compositions that capture the place of each story and its characters, both the outside natural world and the interior world as represented by the home; and finally a feeling that the filmmaker brings to each film what the film historian David Thomson calls a “great tenderness for people.”
And it is those three things, to one extent or another, that I enjoyed so much when I saw Hirokazu Kore-eda’s new film Our Little Sister at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival.
I have enjoyed Kore-eda’s work since I saw his first film Maborosi at SIFF in 1996. Of course, to compare Kore-eda to Ozu is to take the former’s measure, and to understand that he is not Ozu. For one thing, Kore-eda’s film technique is less stylized and his shot style less static with more normal camera movement than Ozu’s. And yet there are similarities in story and composition easily noticed in a film like Our Little Sister.
It is the story of three sisters living alone in a house given them by their late grandmother. The oldest sister, Sachi, is the surrogate “house” mother for the group. When they receive word that their father who abandoned them has died, each of the sisters has a different feeling. Sachi, who remembers the most about the father, is angry and wants nothing to do with his funeral. While the two younger sisters, the romantically impractical and seemingly unambitious Yoshino and the childish and happy Chika, decide to go, and on the train they reminisce about their father, who they actually remember only as a kind man. Then Sachi unexpectedly shows up, and at the funeral they meet their 14-year-old half-sister Suzu. Finally their step-mother arrives and conflict ensues. Finally, almost on a whim the 3 older sisters invite Suzu to come live with them, which she does.
Unlike Ozu, Kore-eda’s film world usually focuses on fractured, estranged, or surrogate families (Still Walking and Nobody Knows are other examples). Another recurring theme is the abandonment of children. But like Ozu’s characters, much of Kore-eda’s sisters’ lives is viewed from inside their small house, at the table where they share food, talk, argue, and laugh; and by the plum tree, from which they make plum wine, and where they share memories. The sharing of food is a common family experience found in both Ozu’s and Kore-eda’s work.
Work and school are also seen as an essential part of character’s lives, and in Our Little Sister we see both Sachi and Yoshino at their jobs–Sachi’s hospital work providing a crucial element in her story arc. While Suzu is seen on the soccer field where she excels.
As is the case in most of Kore-eda’s films a death or deaths is the catalyst for self-examination, understanding, and change in Our Little Sister. The key relationship here is the one that develops between the practical Sachi, still angry and unforgiving toward her father, a young woman with her own secrets; and the quiet but good-hearted Suzu, who plays on the boys’ soccer team, has only good memories of a man who regularly took her to a special look-out to see the beauty of the world, and who wants to learn more about her other family.
In Our Little Sister, as in Late Spring, aunts play significant roles, although for different reasons. And the illness of the owner of a local restaurant, a place where the sisters hang out, becomes a key factor in the development of Yoshino’s character.
But I’ve revealed enough about the storyline of Our Little Sister. To me this is a special film because first, at the film’s center is a wonderfully observed relationship between the four sisters. Kored-eda shoots them beautifully and the actresses are spot on with their characterizations. Also, the director views his characters at home, at work, in the larger community, and in the natural world, and then he intergrates these aspects of the characters lives to compose a very rich story. And finally, Kore-eda brings to his story a great tenderness for and understanding of his people.
Our Little Sister was shown only once at SIFF. But it was announced at the screening that the film would open in Seattle later this summer.
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The Five Most Interesting Contemporary Films I Saw at SIFF
Sunset Song (Terence Davies) England
Our Little Sister (Hirokazu Kore-eda) Japan
A Man Called Ove (Hannes Holm) Sweden/Norway
Mountains May Depart (Jia Zhangke) China/Japan/ France
Antonia (Ferdinando Cito Filomarino) Italy/Greece