Nobuhiro Yamashita’s charming, nostalgia-tinged offbeat dramas
have a calming effect on me. His deadpan minimalism, the simple narrative
largely free of manipulations, the relaxed mid to long shots, and the
matter-of-factness in evoking the sense of time and place adds up to the
enduring appeal of Yamashita’s works. His movies may not have the narrative
economy and artistic precision of the greatest practitioners of such
aforementioned tones, for e.g., Aki Kaurismaki, Takeshi Kitano or Jim Jarmusch.
But Yamashita often brings his own refreshing idiosyncrasies and painstaking
observations to turn a rather conventional story into a resonant drama.
While his first three films – Hazy Life, No One’s Ark, and
Ramblers – featured slacker youth with not much of a plot, Yamashita’s later
works explored the awkward teenage years built around a storyline of sorts. Yamashita’s fourth directorial effort Linda
Linda Linda (2005) was definitely his breakthrough film earning the commercial
success that remained out of his reach. Recruited as a director-for-hire,
Yamashita furnishes both the momentous and mundane events with an understated
beauty. The script written by Kosuke Mukai & Wakako Miyashita won an award
in the screenwriting competition which was brought to the director’s attention
by producer Hiroyuki Negishi. Yamashita has reportedly made quite a few changes
to the script.
Though the high school setting and all-female band reminded
me of Shinobu Yaguchi’s highly entertaining Swing Girls (2004), Linda Linda
Linda dodges the familiar beats of teens-preparing-for-talent-show narrative. While
Swing Girls is riddled with belly-laugh inducing vignettes and a thunderous
final musical performance, Yamashita’s movie isn't strictly preoccupied in moving towards the destination. We know the narrative is just about all-girls punk-rock quartet
preparing for a high school talent show. And of course it culminates with an
obligatory yet an intoxicating musical number. However, Yamashita almost
displaces such limiting qualities of the familiar narrative with nuanced humor and tranquilizing
framing devices – the stoic as well as playful countenance of its central four
characters are often gracefully set against silent space.
Teen dramas effortlessly zeroing-in on expressions of
bewilderment and awkwardness or documenting their simplest yet stressful trials
of life, of course, is nothing new. But Yamashita does it in a shrewd,
idiosyncratic manner. Moreover, he foregrounds the characters’ desire and quiet
humility in a way that really transcends the constraints of the narrative. The
girls in Linda Linda Linda and even the characters in the periphery might come
across as sweet and innocent, and the only tense stand-off in the narrative
isn’t elaborated. Yet there are quite a few suggestions of excruciating things
going on behind the scenes which Yamashita leaves it up to the viewers to fill
in the details (most particularly the meaning of a dream sequence).
The movie opens with drummer Kyoko (Aki Maeda) and bassist
Nozomi (Shiori Sekine) alluding to an argument between key members of their
band: keyboard player, Kei (Yu Kashii) and lead vocal Rinko (Takayo Mimura).
The rift between these best high-school friends is whispered across the school
corridors. It is said to have happened over replacing their injured lead
guitarist, Moe Imamura (Shione Yukawa). Whatever the reasons, the band’s chance
to perform at the school’s annual talent-show, which is just few days away, remains tentative. Kei raises up to the occasion and takes over the lead guitarist duties, whereas Nozomi stumbles
on to a box of old cassettes and they decide to perform the 80’s hit ‘Linda
Linda Linda’ by the Japanese punk-rock band The Blue Hearts.
When Rinko teasingly questions Kei about their lead vocal,
she just a picks a girl walking through the school courtyard which happens to
be Son (Doona Bae), a Korean exchange student with limited vocabulary of
Japanese and clearly has no singing experience. Oh yes, we can easily visualize
how it’s all gonna end. Nevertheless, the coming together of these four different
individuals as they spend day and night in the school’s cloistered music room plus
the gradual development of friendship between Son and the three girls are
emphasized with a gentle humor and unforgettable tenderness. Though the Korean
actor Doona Bae was in her mid-20s when she played this character, her lean
frame and sleepy eyes allow her to effectively integrate the adolescent
clumsiness. She is definitely the scene-stealer of the four and most
importantly the narrative doesn’t make jokes over her ‘foreigner’ status.
Being such a mature performer Doona Bae brings a graceful
note to Son’s misunderstandings and mistakes so that we only laugh with the
character, and never on her. It was absolutely hilarious to watch Son negotiating her way
into the karaoke club with buying any drinks. Yu Kashii, who plays Kei, is
equally good. Her stoic face and vacant stares subtly expresses the pains of
growing up, especially Kei’s increasing estrangement from close friend Rinko. Furthermore, the
interaction between the four girls though offers nothing revelatory, the
mingling of each of their individual temperament is a joy to behold.
Eventually, the
traces of superficiality in the narrative are wiped off in Yamashita’s lengthy,
brooding unbroken shots. Be it the girls walking in line carrying their musical
instruments or Son and Kei expressing their freshly forged bond in their own
respective languages in the washroom mirror or the moment when Son walks to the
stage, the day before the show, with a mix of fear, zeal, and delight, Yamashita
and his flawless actors pushes us to live in the moment alongside the
characters. There are eventful teen dramas that might come across as sluggish, and
there’s Yamashita’s film which underlines the resplendence of simple warm-hearted
human interactions – the style the director has followed in his subsequent
subtle dramadies, A Gentle Breeze in the Village (2007), The Drudgery Train
(2012), and Over the Fence (2016).
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