Still Walking

I’m tempted to say that Hirokazu Kore-eda is more Ozu than Ozu, since I happened to watch his latest in tandem with Floating Weeds (1959), which is uncharacteristic late Ozu in that it looks at a traveling theater troupe rather than his typical tight family focus.  Here Kore-eda’s focus is equally tight, one day in the life of one family.  Gathering at the parents’ home near Yokohama are the grown daughter, with her layabout husband and cute girl and boy, and the fortyish son who is bringing his new wife, a beautiful and charming young widow with a son about the same age as the others.  Absent is the elder son, who was supposed to take over his father’s medical practice, but died prematurely in a manner that emerges gradually from the mostly unspoken -- or indirectly expressed – interactions among the family members.  The family gathering seems to be the focus of quality world cinema these days.  Like Summer Hours last year and A Christmas Tale the year before, Still Walking is among the very best of recent films.  It foregrounds exploration of character while remaining deliriously visual – one memorable close-up has the hands of the three children reaching up into the blossoms of a cherry tree.  The film’s exceptional beauty came through even when streamed as video on a computer.  (Oddly, there is no DVD yet but Netflix does offer it for instant play.)  The rituals and habits of familial communication have rarely been more sensitively drawn.  Apparently Kore-eda made the film after the death of his parents, to atone for his inattention while they were alive.  It is a beautiful testament and testimony, humorous and heart-felt, life-affirming while sharply pointed.  (2009, Netflix stream)  *8*  (MC-89)