Critics fondly call Japanese film-maker Sion Sono, a punk auteur of the 21st century cinema. Of course that tag doesn’t do full justice to a film-maker, who has in the two decades provided extensive and varied body of works that range from bloody guerrilla-style films (“Hazard”, “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?") to surrealistic tales of abuse (“Suicide Club”, “Strange Circus”) to epics and biting psychological character studies (“Love Exposure”, Cold Fish”). Nevertheless, Sono’s works are definitely not for all. His penchant for framing assortments of perversity and anarchist behavior would rattle viewers not interested in darkening subject matters. Sono’s 2011 movie “Himizu” may not be his best, but it’s definitely one of the boldest works, where Sono was able to expand on his trademark themes as well as able to diffuse several new stressful themes. It was also one of the director’s most compassionate works with less violence and perversity.
“Himizu” was based on a manga series of the same name from
2001-02. The manga series portrayed the grim story of a middle-school boy
Sumida. Sono updated the script by setting Sumida’s restless spirit against the
backdrop of ferocious 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami (Spike Lee’s “25th
Hour” was adapted in similar manner from David Benioff’s novel). The initial shots
set in the aftermath of earthquake lend a post-apocalyptic feeling and in the
course of the narrative, Sono along with existential crisis of a teen was able
to tell wider societal implications of the disaster. The 14 year old protagonist Sumida (Shota Sometani) lives in a decrepit lakeside shack with an alcoholic mother. In the
evening, after school, Sumida rents out boats for tourists, but the humongous
disaster has curbed the business prospects. Only a warm community of homeless
men and women gather around Sumida’s house (including an elderly man named
Yoruno who claims to be a company CEO, lost everything to earthquake).
Sumida’s father is a deadbeat, who often beats the boy for
money and repeatedly states, how great it would be if Sumida had drowned when
he was meant to, so that he could have claimed the insurance money. The
exuberant teacher at the junior-high class asks Sumida to have a ‘dream’, but
the boy replies ‘A boat shack’s fine; Ordinary is the best’. In fact Sumida’s
aim is to live like ‘himizu’ – an indigenous shrew mole of Japan. Apart from
the homeless, the only person cares about Sumida’s well being is a
self-confessed stalker classmate, Keiko Chazawa (Fumi Nikaido), who was written
all the words Sumida has uttered in school and pasted it in her room. One day,
the boy’s mother runs off with a stranger, leaving a note ‘have a nice life’.
Later, Sumida is brutally beaten by Yakuza gang, to whom his father owes a lot
of money. All this physical and emotional tortures pushes Sumida to embrace a
homicidal madness. As the boy struggles to find a way from the doomed future,
he encounters soulmates, fully consumed by the societal madness.
As usual, director Sono seamlessly establishes the cruelty
of the world Sumida inhabits through impeccable visual palettes (littered with
rubble and muddy riverbanks) and painfully real human characters. Sono takes
the post-tsunami devastation images of Japan and subtly uses it as a symbol for
a repressed society that is barely holding itself together.The repeated abuse
of the younger people might be viewed as over-the-top (Chazawa’s parents has
built a gallows for the girl to hang), but these abuses could be taken as a
metaphor for how elderly statesmen of the government have abused the general
public’s trust in them (like smothering the implications of a nuclear disaster).
Sono’s vision of school only seems to provide that common, useless platitudes
like ‘I’m a flower, one of a kind’, whereas the students are thrown at
immeasurable societal challenges.
“Himizu” is diffused with Sono’s thematic trademarks as well
as differs a lot from the previous works. The extraordinary surrealism,
heightened approach towards perverseness and violence depicted in Sono’s ‘Hate
Trilogy’ (“Love Exposure”, “Cold Fish” & “Guilty of Romance”) has been
replaced with a sense of optimism and more grounded characters. The number of
selfless characters in “Himizu” provides tough fight to the gang of abusers.
Despite her eccentricity, Chazawas comes off as the altruistic character
capable of transcending the Japanese psyche with a distinguished better future.
Child-like Yoruno (played to perfection by Tetsu Watanabe) represents a older
generation that seeks redemption for the sins of past. While, Sumida is beaten
up by the Yakuza member, Yoruno chimes in and asks to be beaten for the debt
owed. He also makes a statement “It’s only six million! You beat up a little
boy for that amount”, which insists on the triviality of the conflict, compared
with the larger environmental threats.
Sono’s has the ability to transform a seemingly random
encounter into a sequence that resonate his favorite societal themes. In one
inventive, gutsy scene we see pair of inexperienced burglars hiding from the
house owner, a neo-Nazi who watches the news report on Fukushima disaster
implicating the government officials. The person in TV states how Japanese
always use the excuse ‘that they’d come too far’. The same excuse in a subtle
manner is used by all the characters over the course of narrative (the burglars
goes too far by not just robbing but also killing the neo-Nazi). In another
scene, a perplexed young man is caught before he tries to stab a man, singing
on stage. He asks “Who Am I?” which is a question that haunts Sumida’s mind
(referred in the poem he recites) and confronted by an entire society in the
aftermath of disaster. “Himizu” drew a lot of attention for its public stabbing
sequences, especially after the recent confession of ‘Charleston Church
Shooting’ suspect Dylan Roof stated that ‘Himizu’s’ teen protagonist inspired him to commit the
act (Roof’s website had Sumida’s words “Even if my life is worth a speck of
dirt, I want to use it for the good of society").
Sono’s work, nevertheless, doesn’t encourage violence to get
rid of angst. In fact, the film insists on love, hope for such endlessly abused
people. The public stabbing spree witnessed numerous times by Sumida actually
happened in Tokyo’s Akihabara district. The incident on Akihabara left 10
injured and seven dead (all are pedestrians) and similar kind of incidents
happened in Hiratsuka Train station, Tokyo supermarkets, etc. A Japanese
Criminal-sociology specialist commented on a ‘Seattle Times’ article that "the
number of isolated young people in society is increasing. Many people feel that
the competitiveness of Japanese society has made them outsiders.” Sono
accumulates these harrowing real-life incidents to strengthen his viewpoint on
the pressures faced by Japanese teens (in the film, the youngster stabbing in the bus shouts "Don't I have a choice?"). He subtly notes the irony in the speech
of the schoolteacher, who persists on individuality as well as the need for all
to have singular vision to build the nation. The mid-part where Sumida wanders
through the city with a misguided idea of activism does seem a little too long
& repetitive. But, the ending is one of the best in Sono’s films. As Keiko
persistently shouts “Sumida! Don’t give up!” to the salvation-seeking young
man, we feel how compassionate, hopeful and unpredictable this Japanese
punk auteur could be.
“Himizu” (130 minutes) is a bold, stinging examination of
existential and moral crisis faced by an embittered youth and a devastated
society.
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