A Life of Love Review: Koji Fukada’s Heartbreaking Study on Pain and Guilt

Apartment in the center love and lifeKoji Fukada’s delicate study of pain and dislocation is, like the film, compact and practical. A long table surrounded by a narrow chair and several chairs occupies the center of the room. The kitchen is in the corner. At the entrance: bathroom with short bath, sink, toilet. Back: sliding doors that opened onto a balcony overlooking a hideous chunk of concrete; Room on the right. Evidence of family life is everywhere: height marks etched into the wall, trophies, diplomas, children’s drawings, books, hanging clothes, shoes in the corner.

Taeko (Fumino Kimura), Jiro (Kento Nagayama) and their 6-year-old son Keita (Teta Shimada) live in this strange space, and the way they interact is one of the most exciting aspects of Fukada’s latest film. with love and lifeThe Japanese director pushes the boundaries of themes he’s explored in previous films like comics Hospitality and menacing drama Harmonium. Isolation, emotional distance and (non)communication are shown love and lifeYet these topics are treated with a disorienting but welcome lightness that emphasizes the absurdity of family life.

love and life Inspired by the song of the same name by Japanese jazz and pop singer Akiko Yano. According to press records, Fukada heard the song when he was 20 years old and thought about how to build a translation for the film. The 1993 song is about a great proclamation: “No matter the distance between us, nothing can stop me from loving you,” he sings at one point. Fukada’s film examines that feeling and explores it beyond romantic love, applying the promise to current lovers, former lovers, and mother-child relationships.

At the beginning of the film, Taeko, Jiro and Keita prepare for a celebration: a festival for Keita to win the Othello board game, which is actually a birthday surprise for Jiro’s father Makoto (Tomorowo Taguchi). Fukada carefully introduces the uneven family dynamic: in one scene, Taeko watches Jiro try to rally his classmates with balloons and “congratulations” signs; Her gaze is loving. In another, Jiro, by the stove while Taeko and Keita laugh at Othello’s game, complains that the boy never wants to play with him. Taeko, through sign language, encourages Keita to play with his father. Keita laughs and points out that Jiro is trash.

The common language between mother and daughter distinguishes them from Jiro, who briefly communicates “Mhm”. When we get to know the latter’s parents, the dividing lines become clearer. Makoto and Aki (Misuzu Kano) struggle to accept Taeko because Keita is her son from a previous marriage. As Aki tries to keep calm as comic relief, Makoto’s pointless bickering turns into a strained relationship with his sister-in-law.

When Keita dies – he slips and falls into a bathtub that is still full of water – the cracks in the relationship calcify. Fukada represents the sudden death of a child, a reflection of how tragedy can end a life so suddenly.

Grief reveals the truth of this family, as each member processes Keita’s death differently: Makoto and Aki decide to move to the countryside and keep their previous promise. No longer confined to their apartment across the yard from Taeko and Jiro, they go about their lives with little fanfare. Jiro straddles the line between his parents’ restrained reaction and Taeko’s overwhelming sadness: During his one-year marriage to Taeko, he only met Keita for a relatively short, albeit intense, period. Nagayama captures the vocabulary of Jiro’s heart well: the responsibility he feels for Taeko, the cowardice that keeps him from telling the truth about his recent relationship with Yamazaki (Hirona Yamazaki), who lied to Taeko, and the anxiety and contempt for himself. . makes communication difficult.

Unlike Jiro, Taeko is distraught, oblivious to her son’s death. Fukada elegantly portrays the growing distance between the two, suggesting a coldness that pervades domestic routines. In one particularly poignant scene, Jiro, who is selecting photos of Keita for the funeral, asks Taeko to go with him. He initially sits next to her, but when he asks Keita for older photos that aren’t from last year, she moves to the opposite side of the long dining room table as she goes through the files. The apartment is bathed in warm, saturated golden light, but the proximity of the moment is cold, gray, and dead.

At Keita’s funeral, the ex-husband of Taeko Park (Atom Sunada), a deaf Korean living in Japan, materializes. After leaving Taeko and Keita with no explanation years ago, the devastated father reappears and punches his ex-wife in the face. It’s a heartbreaking moment, and the first time Taeko, who is sobbing, shows any emotion. A strangely shaped love triangle unfolds after Park re-enters Taeko’s life. There is no physical intimacy between the ex-husbands, but the emotional closeness brought on by their son’s death and Park’s sudden decision to apply for social assistance at the office where Jiro and Taeko work complicate their lives. Jiro, chasing the Illusion of Morality, asks Taeko to help Park.

And it happens. But it soon becomes clear that the park is Taeko’s defense mechanism, a vessel into which she can pour her grief and guilt. She allows Park to stay at Jiro’s parents’ old apartment, proving to her, herself, and the others that her ex-husband, who is also homeless, needs her. Desperation to be useful throws her into Park’s life, blurring Taeko’s vision and preventing her from realizing her ex-husband’s selfishness.

For the most part, Fukada keeps the story steady, allowing the relationship between Park, Taeko, and Jiro to unfold at a natural, unrestricted pace. It helps that the three central actors (Kimura, Nagayama and Sunada) look established in their characters; There is no harshness in your image. The humor – the actors’ deadpan jokes, the almost absurd situations – also keeps the film moving, preventing it from being swept away by sentimentality.

But there are times when love and lifeThe plot is very strong and obvious, with Fukada relying on convenient, sometimes malicious, phrases to get us from one key moment to the next. And while this may be intended as a reflection of the randomness of life, they work against it. love and lifeFinish the enchanting spell that Fukada cast.