Nobody Knows Review

Four young kids in urban Japan must fend for themselves with very little money or resources while their deadbeat single mother leaves them alone for extended periods of time. The two younger children are not allowed out of the tiny apartment (even onto the veranda), while the older girl slowly becomes increasingly despondent and withdrawn. This leaves only the fourteen year-old boy to manage things, a job that becomes increasingly difficult as necessities like money and running water become no longer available. So he wanders the streets (a lot), and does the best he can in these horrible circumstances, scrounging, but also attempting to maintain an air of normalcy.

No, that’s not a sampling from a “100 Neediest Cases” type of real-life tragedy – although it very well could be. That is the rough description of the new film from Japanese writer/director Hirokazu Koreeda, entitled “Nobody Knows”

Nobody Knows

Four young kids in urban Japan must fend for themselves with very little money or resources while their deadbeat single mother leaves them alone for extended periods of time. The two younger children are not allowed out of the tiny apartment (even onto the veranda), while the older girl slowly becomes increasingly despondent and withdrawn. This leaves only the fourteen year-old boy to manage things, a job that becomes increasingly difficult as necessities like money and running water become no longer available. So he wanders the streets (a lot), and does the best he can in these horrible circumstances, scrounging, but also attempting to maintain an air of normalcy.

No, that’s not a sampling from a “100 Neediest Cases” type of real-life tragedy – although it very well could be. That is the rough description of the new film from Japanese writer/director Hirokazu Koreeda, entitled “Nobody Knows” (or “Dare mo shiranai”, if you prefer the original Japanese title). But apparently the comparison to real life bad news sorrow stories is less of a stretch than I knew while watching the film - Koreeda adapted this heartbreaking coming of age tale from a similar (and even more tragic) real life 1988 news story of child abandonment in Japan. I’ll spare you the grisly and inhumane details of that story in order to protect the experience of the film, but suffice to say, the whole thing was apparently pretty notorious in the Japanese press back then. Perhaps rightfully, the mother of the kids was publicly demonized for turning her back on her young children. Interestingly, Koreeda had supposedly set out to undo that portrayal in his film adaptation, opting for all-around humanization of the characters, no matter how despicable their actions. A lofty goal, yes, but in the end, this pseudo-documentary gets too caught up in it’s own self-indulgent naturalistic style, as I began to wonder just how much wandering and meandering a film can contain.

That’s not to say “Nobody Knows” is a bad film. Koreeda took an obvious chance with this subject matter, and there are undeniable moments of pure honesty, both childlike and pure, and tragically cynical. But even if you don’t mind subtitles (and you shouldn’t), this movie virtually embodies the cliché of slow pacing in foreign films. It manages to be one of the frontrunners for feel-bad film of the year, yet it feels like not all that much happens in its two hour running time. It’s easy to see that a certain drifting melancholy was the goal, and I suppose it’s successful in that regard - but dang! This isn’t exactly “The Bicycle Thief”. A little desperate wandering of the lead fourteen year old goes a long way in this reviewer’s humble opinion.

At the end of the film, the frame freezes and the lead actors real names and character names appear one at a time. The last one on the list was “The mother – You”. Excuse me? I wondered, could it be that “You” is actually the name of the actress, or is that one of the most heavy-handed things I’ve ever seen in any movie EVER? Considering that the rest of the film didn’t appear to have any kind of guilt agenda, this appeared to be a pretty shamefully moralistic element tacked on at the last possible moment. Fortunately, it was a false alarm, as “You” is indeed the name under which this talented actress playing the mother goes by.

Although “Nobody Knows” is a unique film in many respects, it’s difficult to recommend outright. The performances are always believable, and sometimes positively painful (as when the oldest boy tries to confront his mother on her selfish behavior), but in the end it’s a director’s film, dominated by its drab visual tone and deliberate pacing. Maybe I wasn’t quite in the mood such a slow, meandering film. If you find yourself in such a mood, and if you don’t mind subtitles (if so, why are you still reading?), you may be inclined to give this naturalistic tale of childhood woe a try.

- Jim Tudor