Time goes by…in Madrid

Suena una explosión y los pasajeros de un tren despiertan aturdidos con las caras quemadas entre el amasijo de hierros de los vagones. Son imágenes en blanco y negro de los últimos días de la Segunda Guerra Mundial: Estados Unidos acaba de lanzar la bomba sobre la ciudad de Hiroshima. El director Shohei Imamura comienza su película sin mucho dramatismo, y rápidamente traslada la acción a un tranquilo pueblo de la provincia con los mismos personajes unos años más tarde. La familia Shizuma, compuesta por un matrimonio de mediana edad y una sobrina a la que han criado desde niña, hacen preparativos para una boda que nunca se celebrará. Los pretendientes se suceden pero la duda sobre la radiación y la futura salud de la novia y sus descendientes, les hace desistir y terminan rechazando a la bonita y diligente Yasuko porque sufrió la lluvia negra de residuos tóxicos que siguió a la bomba.

Serán los diarios de tío y sobrina los que, en forma de flashback nos lleven por fin al epicentro de la tragedia nuclear, donde una sucesión de cuerpos calcinados se amontonan en las calles, se arrastran como muertos vivientes o son arrastrados por la corriente de los ríos. Pequeñas historias como microcuentos dentro del argumento mostrarán a un hombre que no reconoce a su desfigurado hermano pequeño y le pide pruebas de que es realmente él; o a un padre que ha de abandonar a su hijo atrapado por vigas de hormigón porque el fuego se acerca; o a un hombre enloquecido que grita ‘¿dónde está Hiroshima?’ antes de lanzarse por la ventana. Y todo ello en un interminable universo dantesco que desgraciadamente puede no haber estado muy lejos de la realidad.

El ritmo tranquilo del filme y la vida armoniosa del pueblo con sus campos de arroz y la humanidad de sus paisanos contrasta con la sucesión de víctimas de la bomba –hibakusha- cuyos síntomas aparecen ineluctablemente para hacerles perecer uno tras otro. A través de dichos personajes se indaga sobre los motivos del lanzamiento de la bomba: si la guerra ya estaba prácticamente acabada, ¿por qué se tiró?, ¿por qué se lanzó sobre Hiroshima? Pero las respuestas quedan en el aire y el mundo olvida con facilidad, preparado para cometer los mismos errores.

Más que sobre la muerte en sí misma de los habitantes de la ciudad, la película incide en la desesperanza de una generación que ha de vivir con el miedo a los síntomas de la radiación, el rechazo social al que son expuestos y, sobre todo, denuncia el fin de la tradición familiar, ese tesoro japonés: la imposibilidad de honrar a los antepasados con la continuidad de la línea familiar.

Kenzaburo Oe, escritor japonés premio Nobel en 1994 y activista antinuclear reflexiona sobre las guerras y pide que antes de acometerlas, se piense en las posibles consecuencias negativas para las poblaciones afectadas en lugar de en los motivos geoestratégicos y económicos que normalmente las ocasionan. Kuroi Ame debería ser una visión obligada para todos aquellos que tengan el poder de comenzarlas.

Con esa frase Nemo Nobody le explica a su padre el sinsentido de la vida. Sale y termina casándose con la preciosa oriental que le regala un primer baile. Y con la rubia que anda enamorada de un chupa-de-cuero indeterminado pero que cede a su determinación. Y con Anna, la hija del novio de su madre, con quien mantiene su más pura historia de amor de los 15 años y se buscan y se encuentran mucho tiempo después.

La memoria es como un anciano senil de 118 años que mezcla recuerdos, caras, anécdotas, sujetos y actantes porque los recuerdos son una creación, o mejor dicho, una recreación de nuestro pasado. Pero, ¿cuál es la verdad? ¿Te casaste con ella o no? ¿Tuviste hijos? Da igual, porque “every path is the right path”.

Mr. Nobody es la película más ambiciosa que he visto en mucho tiempo: una indagación de la existencia a través de las múltiples posibilidades que ofrece la vida a un ser humano, objeto de continuas y múltiples decisiones cuyas consecuencias kierkegaardianas no están claras, determinismo versus azar. Cuatro o cinco universos paralelos se distribuyen entre las 3 edades del personaje: como un niño cuyos padres se separan y debe decidir con cuál de ellos vivir, como un adolescente que vive su primer amor o como un joven adulto que se despierta cada día en la cama de una esposa diferente. El anciano narrador y el personaje de la novela que escribe el adolescente Nemo completan el caótico círculo de coincidencias y fatalidades.
“I remember the future”, le dice a su desconcertada madre. “Why did I say…I don’t go swimming with idiots” se convierte en “I don’t know how to swim” y la chica que le habría abandonado al instante se transforma en la mujer de su vida. Todos hemos soñado con cambiar el pasado y vivir una vida diferente. Nemo lo hace de manera inconsciente, hasta cuando cambia de nombre y consigue que lo maten. ¿O no? El filme se erige en el paradigma del posmodernismo, donde nada es seguro ni estable. Pasa de una vida a otra como un torbellino.

El estilo es muy variado, así como sus influencias: del videoclip al documental científico a la ciencia ficción con viaje a Marte incluido a la película años 50 con banda sonora de Mr. Sandman a la historia de amor, y con ramalazos del Efecto mariposa, del espejo de Alicia, de Inception, de Abre los ojos, de Desafío Total, del cine francés, de Delicattessen, una enciclopedia del cine moderno, en definitiva, con transiciones marcadas por una hoja volando por el viento, el agua de una piscina, el color del pelo de una mujer o el sonido del despertador.

El anciano de un mundo futuro donde todos los inmortales tienen cerditos como animales de compañía sentencia las dudas de Nemo y completa el puzle porque “life is a playground”, como una partida de ajedrez con infinitos movimientos posibles, y en un juego de intercambio de voces da marcha atrás de nuevo para volver a modificarlo.

Algo más de un año después del atentado de la estación de Atocha en Madrid, tres bombas explotaron en el metro de Londres y una cuarta lo hizo en un autobús. Era el 7 de julio de 2005 y 56 personas murieron en el ataque terrorista. London River, una película a medio camino entre documental y ficción abre con la noticia de los atentados tal y como pudo llegar a gran parte de la población, a través de la televisión y la radio. La vida rutinaria y tranquila de Elisabeth, una mujer británica de mediana edad retirada en su casa de campo en una de las pequeñas islas del Canal de la Mancha, se ve poco a poco perturbada por la sombra de la duda: su hija Jane, de 20 años, que reside y estudia en Londres, no responde a sus llamadas ni a los repetidos mensajes que le deja en el contestador. Tras unos días, vuela a la capital en busca de respuestas. De igual modo, Ousmane, un africano francófono de edad avanzada y residente en Francia durante 15 años, donde trabaja como guarda forestal, es conminado por su esposa, todavía en África, a viajar a Londres en busca del hijo de ambos que aquél no ve desde su partida y llevarlo de vuelta con su madre.

Dos historias paralelas en una metrópoli multicultural con cierta imagen de armonía, paseos interminables por silenciosos hospitales que acabarán por unir a estas dos personas tan distintas en apariencia –él, negro y musulmán; ella, blanca y cristiana- pero tan similares en su sufrimiento. Las iniciales suspicacias se convierten en solidaridad mutua, y deciden continuar sendas búsquedas como una sola, como una inevitable continuación de la relación que mantienen sus hijos.

Estamos acostumbrados a neutros titulares de periódico que incluyen cifras de bajas como si se tratase de datos económicos; o a imágenes instantáneas de guerras lejanas, casi como de ficción. Pero cuando un filme profundiza en los sentimientos y en la ansiedad que provoca la incertidumbre de no conocer el paradero de un hijo, al tiempo que nos muestra un mecanismo de defensa tan humano como el de negar la evidencia para evitar que la supuesta desgracia se nos acerque, es imposible distanciarse como espectador y acabamos empatizando e incluso identificándonos con los personajes.

Leo un editorial de El País sobre las neuronas “espejo”, esas que se disparan cuando otro individuo realiza un comportamiento y provocan la sensación de que es el propio observador quien estuviera actuando. Son ellas las causantes de que el ritmo lento pero in crescendo de esta película te envuelva como si tú mismo fueras la aprensiva Elisabeth o el sereno Ousmane a la espera de que una llamada te devuelva la vida o te arranque para siempre una parte de ella.

Termina la proyección y mi acompañante rusa me pregunta por la relación entre el título y la trama: no se me ocurre qué contestarle.

“I’ve done the impossible. I’ve recreated the infinite nuances of the human being, the human soul”, “God is my judge: I made her!”, “I’m so relaxed around you. I’m so myself”, “Real truth doesn’t work”. Estas son algunas de las frases de S1MØNE, una película un tanto peculiar del año 2002 que revisa el mito ovidiano de Pigmalión –incluso con referencias intertextuales explícitas en sus imágenes- y lo adapta al Hollywood de nuestros días.

Viktor Taransky, un director en el crepúsculo de su vida profesional, encuentra una actriz muy especial que le da un nuevo impulso a su carrera y a sus películas. El único problema es que Simone en realidad no existe, es un avatar creado por Hank Aleno –Elias Koteas- a partir de actrices eternas como Lauren Bacall, Maryl Streep, Audrey Hepburn, Jodie Foster, etc. a gusto del consumidor y de las necesidades de la escena. El éxito de la misteriosa actriz, que acaba convirtiéndose en una pesada carga para Viktor de la que es difícil de escapar, supone una crítica no tan velada al star sytem actual donde actores y actrices jóvenes –también es extensible a futbolistas, cantantes y demás faranduleros- ostentan un poder de convocatoria tal que acaban dominando a directores y productores, cuando en muchas ocasiones no son más meras creaciones que terminan por rebelarse frente a sus creadores, a lo Mili Vanili.

En la película, el público confunde a la actriz con el personaje, y su ausencia en los medios provoca la creación de un mito popular que Viktor no tiene más remedio que destruir. Es inevitable la comparación con Marilyn Monroe, de cuyo fallecimiento se cumple este año el 50 aniversario, aunque esta última no se caracterizó en vida precisamente por su discreción.

Un aspecto muy interesante de la creación de Simone y su forma de interactuar con Viktor es la ventriloquia, cómo es él quien se responde a sí mismo en una conversación con voces manipuladas a través del ordenador, que nos lleva a pensar en la consciencia masculina de una mujer ideal, o incluso de la proyección de uno mismo en esa forma ideal como un acto de máximo narcisismo. Aunque en el fondo Viktor solo busca que lo comprendan como persona y lo valoren como director.

Pero Viktor merece su castigo, como todo hombre que se atreve acercarse al árbol de la ciencia y sisarle el trabajo de la creación a Dios, pero también saca algunas moralejas: que las construcciones irreales son más atractivas que la siempre defectuosa realidad y que el efecto de influencia en el público por parte de ciertos modelos puede generar cambios en la actitud de las personas hacia asuntos necesarios como la solidaridad. Es su hija la que le hace ver en un primer momento que Simone se está aprovechando de él, robándole su vida, y luego que no hay nada malo en crear algo virtual, sino en mentir sobre ello. Aunque eso es algo que a los japoneses no les importa demasiado, en vista del éxito de Hatsune Miku, la S1MØNE nipona.

El siglo XXI está marcado por avances tecnológicos inimaginables hace apenas unas décadas y una carrera competitiva por inventar que convierte en obsoleta cualquier investigación científica apenas se hace pública. Entre ellos se incluyen los experimentos genéticos con células madre humanas, prohibidos en muchos países. Splice profundiza en la polémica mostrando a una pareja de genetistas saltándose las normas legales y creando seres a medio camino entre pollos, conejos y personas a partir de combinaciones de DNA para conseguir una utopía: la cura de todas las enfermedades y el alargamiento infinito de la vida. La cosa se les va de las manos cuando el ser creado no es una masa informe sino que resulta cercano al ser humano y genera en ellos sentimientos que van desde el instinto maternal hasta la atracción sexual, no permitiéndoles verlo como el simple objeto de un experimento científico.

La estética recuerda al primer Alien, a extraños seres de La Guerra de las Galaxias e incluso a E.T. o a los cameronianos avatares, y el rápido desarrollo fisiológico de la criatura provoca que los personajes de Clive y Elsa estén en cuestión de días frente a un ser adulto al que tratan como a un niño travieso. Las historias paralelas de su vida personal como pareja y su trabajo como colegas en el laboratorio acaban fundiéndose a causa de Dren, el ser que sigue sufriendo metamorfosis incluso después de muerto (de pollo a mujer a anfibio a pájaro a hombre…).
Uno de los temas del filme es la atracción sexual por lo diferente, en este caso otra especie animal mientras tenga un rastro o porción de humano, y ello se puede extrapolar tanto a las relaciones inter-raciales como a una interpretación del mito de Pigmalión un tanto particular, ya que en realidad el nuevo ser ha sido creado por ellos. El mito de Electra, de la hija enamorada del padre y en rivalidad con la madre también es visible en la película, así como el extrañamiento de los padres por parte de los hijos una vez que estos maduran.

La transición del laboratorio al granero donde esconden a Dren y la “humanizan” es una nueva fase del claustrofóbico filme ruralizando una historia urbana y dándole un toque gótico y vampírico. La tensión de la historia continúa subiendo hasta un final un tanto previsible pero necesario, y en un guiño a otro clásico de la ciencia ficción –Terminator- la trama queda suspendida en manos del personaje de una mujer fuerte en espera de que el productor Guillermo del Toro se anime con una secuela.

In the past one of the most militaristic societies, a nation of warriors led by bushido for centuries and an aggressive Asian colonial power at the beginning of the XX century, Japan can be considered today a peaceful and non-belligerent society, at least in theory. The dealings about the Futenma base in Okinawa with their American allies and their nuclear-umbrella protection, as well as the realistic development of a euphemistically-called “self defense forces” army contrast with a population raised in the idea of peace and the evil of war.

Having suffered the bombing of their main cities and the total annihilation of 2 of them by those same allies, the new generations have chosen to forget or at least to deceive the pain and keep it tucked away in their hearts to be able to continue life. The characters in Shohei Imamura’s film 豚と軍艦 Pigs and Battlefield (1961) live in a post-war Yokosuka (small port south of Yokohama), “occupied” by the marines, whom they despise; but they need them for a living and eventually the loathing becomes admiration. The film sourly shows a defeated country with a wounded national economy and a city-port transformed into a brothel for US GIs, degradation common to other Asian cities in previous years. In the void-of-power but booming new economic society trying to do business with the winner of the War, yakuza Japanese gangsters struggle for those opportunities of making fast and easy money, the same way young Japanese girls feel attracted by a life of affluent parties, nice dresses, alcohol and music on board of the American warships.

Only a few years before, the Japanese submarines were fighting against American destroyers in the Pacific, a decisive battlefield in WWII. The more recent film 真夏のオリオン Last Operations Under The Orion (2009) shows a balance between patriotic self-sacrifice and antimilitarism. Its disapproval of the use of 回天 kaiten submarine kamikazes, manned torpedoes against the American battleships, is represented by the young Japanese captain’s refusal to use them, demanding a fair fight. And the Americans –who also entered the production of the film-, are depicted as a relentless but humanized enemy. The end of the war will be taken by the Japanese crew as a relief and the beginning of the reconciliation.

Back in time but also recent in film is 蟹工船 Kanikosen (2009), a remake of a 1953 film and based on the homonymous proletariat novella written by Takiji Kobayashi in 1929 –by coincidence translated into Spanish by my sempai Jordi Juste-, which to a bolder antimilitarism adds the denounce of social injustice. We are now in 1904 at the time of the Russo-Japanese War, and a Japanese factory-boat sails in Kamchatka’s waters to fish and process crab meat. Young actor Ryuhei Matsuda –much more virile than in his also memorable performance at 御法度 Gohatto (1999)- stands as the spontaneous leader of the uprising on board. The connivance between the military and the private company owning the factory-boat for the sake of profit and an ulterior bribe clearly relates to the exploitation suffered by the young and illiterate overworking crew. In the film, 2 workers get lost in a small boat in the sea but they are saved by the Russian “enemy”, a merchant ship whose seamen teach them a more humanized and democratic relationship between employers and employees. The awareness of their own oppression will trigger the rebellion back on their boat, with fatal but unavoidable consequences.

The 3 movies have their own love stories too: in Orion, the captain’s girlfriend –indeed his best friend’s sister- has pledged to wait for him no matter what. And he goes back, but not the brother, who dies at the bottom of the ocean after a more than implausible conversation in Morse with his friend and brother-in-law. In Kanikosen, stories of childhood girlfriends are mixed with the desire to belong to a happy and wealthy family full of harmony, the dream of the underclass, a Kimura family idyllically represented by cheerfully playing ball in white suits and hats in an Edenic garden. In Pigs and Battlefields, the young, beautiful and strong-willed Haruko is young chinpira Kinta’s motivation to improve. He dreams of becoming a big yakuza boss and looks with contempt the factory work that he is constantly offered by his girl-friend; the smuggling of pigs represents a dirtier but much more profitable activity, but to what price?

These are films that reveal a fictitious but more or less historical panorama of Japan, not so distant in time but far in quality life and freedom compared to these days. They are also an ideological lesson about what could happen again in the event of the rising of the military and/or the break of another big war.

My childhood friend Aguinaco, already a grown-up paterfamilias, used to stress how much he detested films with subtitles because they prevented him from focusing on the story and the images. He called them derogatorily “libropelículas” (book-movies). No matter how hard I tried to sell him the benefits of a film in original version, as far as I know, he never changed his mind.

The other day I went to see a libropelícula, but this time, it was even more special: the subtitles not only repeated the dialogues –they were in the same language, Japanese, not in translation- but they also explained background noises and scenery; and the characters’ mute actions were related by a neutral narrator’s voice. All this was meant for the deaf and the blind, a 30% of the audience at this peculiar movie theater.

At the beginning, it felt a bit disrupting, but once you got used to the different voices, it was even rewarding, especially for non-native speakers like me, a similar experience to reading a book and watching the movie at the same time. The professional work had been made by a NGO call 京都リップル, Kyoto Ripple, whose staff and volunteers decide on matters such as the timing and the content of the narration by the robotic –for not to be mistaken with one of the characters’- voice in off. This unusual process is the closest you can get to a limited-knowledge but very reliable 3rd person narrator in a book. I wonder how this “reading” of the movie would affect to the literary theories of Reader-Response, especially when a non-deaf non-blind watcher-reader sees the film and is continually confronted with what she is watching, listening and reading.

As for the story and the reflection that it stimulates, there is no waste at all in 手紙 Tegami Letters: a man accidentally kills an old woman when breaking into her house and steal money to pay for his younger brother’s school fees and he is incarcerated. The younger brother quits school and struggles through life in society being always tagged as a convict’s relative.

The trite topic of family responsibility in the Japanese society, 義理 giri, is cast a new light with this movie, which mixes aspects such as discrimination –whether if it’s for reasons of money, class, or even the past-, the penitentiary system –as if explained by Foucault- and the related possibility of rehabilitation for ex-convicts, including forgiveness.

Both brothers only correspond by written letters, hence the film’s title and a useful resource for people averse to communicate verbally, especially after the shame of having committed a despicable act. They keep a mutual but unbalanced dependence relationship through these letters, which symbolize the younger brother Naoki’s one of the many pay-backs for his elder brother’s crime because, as he finds on the screen of his computer when searching about penal information: 犯罪者の家族も犯罪です A criminal’s family is also criminal, which becomes a motif in the film, ultimately trying to denounce the discrimination at personal and professional level for a family-related past event. However, as a different character wisely tells him in another scene: 差別は当たり前ですよ Discrimination is a natural thing, a spontaneous reaction from human beings, as a self-defense immediate response to danger. And he continues: “But the answer is not to run away. You have to stay, face it and live with it”. Eventually, they will change their minds, he seems to be suggesting.

Like the children in the film, manichaeistically raised in the fear of the “evil” by those マザーコン over-protective mothers, who forbid them to play with a “marked” child or flee at the sight of the rejected mother, our societies need many more examples like this one to teach us the human side of family, tragedy and crime.

I wish my good friend Aguinaco had seen this libropelícula, too. He would have felt moved like most of the audience watching this interesting cycle of Japanese society-related films.

Adapting Tanizaki Junichiro’s Manji to film is not an easy task, especially for its structure and literary nature. It has been, however, masterly achieved. Basically, the setting is a monologue by a widow, Sonoko, relating the past events to an aged writer, an almost-implied author representing own Tanizaki’s alter ego. Thus, everything starts from the end and we presence a reconstruction of the facts as seen from Sonoko’s eyes.

Of course, many of the words in the book become scenes with real characters in the film, and some others are just skipped through ellipsis, but still, widow and writer’s presence is implicitly omnipresent in the telling of the story.

I suppose that at the time of the book’s publication (first serialized in Kizo newspaper from 1928 and 1930) or even at the premiere of this first-of-four movie version in 1964 by Yasuzo Masumura, the most salient theme was to be the transgressive lesbian love between two main characters. The public’s reception of the work in both moments must have been very different since the Japanese society and morals had changed so much in those more than 30 years, partly because of the American influence after WWII, the same way Japan changed to a great degree from 1964 to 2006, when the last version to date was shot.

Indeed, more than just a homosexual story, both book and film represent the destructive dependence created around the figure of Mitsuko, the young women elevated to goddess by everyone in contact with her, and the infatuation of upper-class people with dull lives, who lose control of their feelings and actions at the hands of Mitsuko’s machinations. But not everything is so obvious: narrator Sonoko, the impulsive young housewife –not that young in the film-, looks sincere and seems to be a reliable teller, although her version of the facts must be taken carefully. The almost-mute narrator, an attentive, impartial and silent writer-counselor in the film, shows Sonoko’s words literally without judging their veracity, and presents physical evidence provided by her in the form of letters, contracts, etc., for the implicit reader-viewer to form his/her possible reconstruction of the facts based on the written-visual objective data. In that sense, Sonoko’s narration keeps the intrigue of the story, at the same time that makes guilt fly from avid-for-tragedy and dramatic Mitsuko to debious Watanuki to her intelligent but fainthearted husband Kotaro to herself.

All characters undergo a transformation of their personalities as if influencing each other and lose their innocence toward a fatal denouement. Jealousy, as related to low self-esteem and the fear of being deceived, constitutes the driving force of novel and film. The four main characters, including Kannon-like Mitsuko (Ayako Wakao is no doubt the best and most attractive actress of her generation), suffer that mixture of blind love, lust and envy to pathological levels, which paradoxically provides them with stamina for their personal fighting.

Although an apparently universal story, Tanizaki adds the Japanese peculiar theatrical nature to the narration with constant allusions to suicide, either individual or collective, as a form of sublime love; the lovers’ frequent weeping and the sexual game with the おねえちゃん oneechan older sister have also this Japanese signature.

Most human societies and their respective religions have tried to cope with people’s sorrow and fears when dealing with death. The three big monotheistic religions imagined heaven as a place where the departed souls enjoy solace in the company of the Creator. Mahayana Buddhism, on the other hand, invented samsara or transmigration of the souls along the 6 existing worlds, depending on the person’s behavior when in the Earth as a human being. The Japanese accept the latter, adding a touch of animistic Shinto’s beliefs, especially the ones concerning the concept of impurity (death and everything in contact with it). Hollywood-awarded おくりびと Okuribito Departures, as well as the uniquely original あぶらくさすの際 Aburakusasu no Matsuri Festival of good and evil, explore funeral services, ceremonies and their implications for society.

The obsessive dedication of the Japanese to regulate かた kata the process of doing anything in most aspects of life extends to death ceremonies, where in the 49 days when a deceased person is to be judged for reincarnation, the bereaved families follow the Buddhist rituals in the most rigorous fashion, starting with the 死に水 shinimizu moistening the departed relative’s lips with wet chopsticks, following with the 湯灌 yukan washing mouth, nose and anus with hot water, the 経帷子 kyoukatabira white kimono, the 死に化粧 shinigeshou make-up, and so on. Indeed, those are Okuribito’s former cellist Daigo’s functions, whose role is masterly interpreted by Masahiro Motoki, although the actor’s physical appearance –and especially his pectorals in a couple of scenes- are more proper of the ex-teenage-idol that he was in the 80’s than of a tranquil musician retreating into the countryside with his plain and stereotypical Japanese wife.

Traditionally, those Buddhist mortician ceremonies used to be performed by an until-recently-discriminated Japanese minority, the so-called 部落民 burakumin, a kind of an under caste with origins from the Middle Ages and with jobs that had physical contact with the “impure” death of animals and people, i.e., butchers, executors, undertakers, leather tanners, etc. Although legal discrimination has disappeared, there’s still a strong social stigma about this minority (in the past also called 穢多 eta lots of filth) and their traditional jobs: the only mention of the more politically-correct word 被差別部落民 hisabetsu burakumin, is a taboo in the Japanese society. If you don’t believe me, try to get a clear opinion about the matter from a Japanese national. Still facing marriage and employment discrimination –the same way you don’t want your family involved with “impurity”, the possessive and paternal Japanese companies don’t want them around themselves-, at least from the 80’s it has become illegal to investigate a person’s ancestors’ origin so that the information can be used to discriminate him or her. However, until what point this prohibition is really enforced, nobody knows: in some cases, neighborhoods are so clearly associated with burakumin origins that a simple address can lead to the questioning of the candidate’s moral intrinsic value, as if it were a modern version of 16th and 17th century’s Spain, obsessed with “purity of blood”, free from Muslim and Jewish “filthiness”.

In Okuribito, when Daigo, the protagonist, suffers the rejection of one of his childhood friends, and his own wife abandons him when he refuses to stop performing such a “filthy and embarrassing job”, there is an implicit denounce of the still-alive prejudice and unmentionable taboo in 21st century’s Japan.
But in the hands of intelligent director Yojiro Takita, the reproach becomes a lesson when dedicated and caring Daigo shows friend and wife that there is nothing to be ashamed of in preparing the dead for funeral and cremation.

Housewife Mika has her own opportunity to redeem her previous bigotry introducing the other big theme in the movie, that of forgiveness, more related to the Christian tradition of sin in a free-of-will West than to indulgently-Buddhist but at the same time strict Japan, full of implicit and elaborated rules in most spheres of life. In Japan, when an individual leaves a group –whether it’s a school club, a cooking lesson or a company-, s/he is automatically frowned upon by the rest of the group members and the previous status of 内 uchi inside the group is switched to 外 soto, an outsider. In occasions, s/he is resentfully tagged as someone not having been able to endure hard times or having looked for his/her own benefit and not that of the group. But when the system where the individual is trying to escape from is the family, forgiveness is unimaginable, especially if there are children. Two stories of family abandonment are shown in this movie. A middle-aged woman working in the funeral parlor as a secretary laments her leaving behind a 6-year-old to run away with her lover, and explains that no matter how remorseful she is, forgiveness is out of the question: “会いたいに決まっているけど会えない Many times I thought of going and meet my grown-up son, but I just can’t”.

This movie shows us both the suffering and deeply ingrained psychological trauma of the abandoned child –stories like these ones are not uncommon in the recent Japanese cinema, 誰も知らない Daremo shiranai Nobody knows (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2004),　菊次郎の夏 Kikujiro no natsu Kikujiro’s summer (Takeshi Kitano, 1999)- but also the human side of those immature adults running away from a world of responsibilities and eventually regretting their behavior. To forgive someone, even for a serious affront or negligence, we first need to understand the person and the circumstances, and try to relativize the damage among all the good actions, including having given birth. And that is the implicit message in this touching film by Yojiro Takita, which will force you to make use of your Kleenex a few times while watching it, unless you are the insensitive type.

Or, at least, that’s the message that director Shion Sono seems to be sending to the audience in his previous to last film 恋の罪 Guilty of romance, recently at Japanese movie theaters and which was presented in Cannes last May.　This time, too, we get the usual share of sex and violence, which his filmography overflows with, apart from some more notes of the bizarre, including Clockwork-Orange aesthetics, balloons of pink ink exploding against naked bodies performing sex, an insane, ceremonious and coarse おばあちゃん grandma, and school-girl mannequins hiding a dismembered human body.

But the really interesting thing about this movie is the depiction of an extreme master-slave relationship in the form of a marriage: former idol Megumi Kagurazaka turned Shion Sono’s iconic actress performs the housewife’s everyday perfect routine of preparing tea with pathological precision, placing the husband’s slippers at the entrance at the millimeter, waiting mutely and frozen next to him for his next order while he is reading, candidly soliciting from him permission to execute oral sex when he pleases so, and so on; everything with the fear of making one day a mistake and suffering a psychological punishment by the egocentric and authoritarian writer that Izumi has for a husband. All this might seem completely unreal but I couldn’t avoid thinking about a young co-worker of mine, who quit her job at 26 to become the 主婦 shufu homemaker of a man she hardly knew in Tokyo, and whose main duty became to prepare 3 different お弁当 box lunches for her strict husband’s day and to make sure that everything at home suited his short-tempered personal taste. That’s why I felt a strange feeling of déjà vu when seeing those scenes.

Going back to the movie, in a surprising but unavoidable turning point of the story, it comes what wouldn’t have an easy justification by any feminist theory but which seems to be a revealing lesson for housewife Izumi: the rediscovery of her own body as a sexual magnet for men, not as a symbol of masculine depravity and female degradation but, on the contrary, as one of psychological liberation from her oppressive marriage. It’s especially memorable her scene in front of the mirror practicing naked the offer of sausage free samples to imaginary clients for her part-time job at the supermarket: いらっしゃいませ。試食いかがですか？美味しいですよ！

The next step into prostitution for Izumi will come from the hand of a female university professor, Makoto, with a multiple-personality disorder due to a too predictable childhood trauma which seems a too literal reading from out-of-fashion Freud. She introduces Izumi to the flourishing world of デリヘル delivery health in the Shibuya district of the 1990’s and lectures her with a particular motto: “恋がなければセックスをしたらお金を取れ If you have sex without love, ask for money”.

The triple theme of the film -marriage, sex and infidelity- is rounded, as in a Natsuo Kirino’s novel, by a third character, Kazuko, a police-woman who brings suspense to the film in the form of a third-person limited narrator. Schizophrenically tough at work and affectionate at home, she keeps a secret third life herself, too.

The world of Japanese housewives is an endless source of ideas for this director but it also prompts social debates in Japanese society about the convenience of this institution, close to extinction due to the economic situation –fewer and fewer families can economically afford to have a no-money-making spouse-. Housewives portray the most traditional Japan –some would call it backward- and they can give rise to harmony and happiness in a family or to a repression magazine about to explode. Shion Sono shows us that second possibility.

Recently, I had dinner in Osaka with a young couple soon to be husband and wife. They told me about the 結納 yuino or engagement ceremony that had taken place the previous month at the bride’s home. Apart from a diamond engagement ring costing as much as 750.000 yen, the groom had to give her future wife 1 million yen as a symbol of the pass of the woman from one family to the other, as if a purchase would be taking place. Astonished as I was, they claimed the celebration to be a custom still popular in Japan, and carried out in at least one third of nowadays’ weddings. Her sister would later tell me how much she wished the couple happiness forever and ever, although she also contemplated the possibility that the bride would end up bored of a monotonous life indoors. At one point, alone with the groom for a few minutes, half-jokingly and with a considerable lack of tact from my part, I told him that after the diamond, the 結納金 betrothal money and the apartment he had just started paying, getting divorced would be out of the question. Trying not to show his evident discomfort, he answered dryly: “僕は離婚しない I won’t get divorced”. Good for him. I just hope his young and lovely wife doesn’t become one of Shion Sono’s characters.