I usually like the CineStar for showing original language films, for the Berlinale I usually hate it for their ass-backwardness in selling tickets. Unlike all others you can not buy tickets for the evening during the day. Well guess what happened when I came from the other movie to buy tickets…
Kazoku no Kuni (Our Homeland, ??????)
Japan 2012, Yang Yong-Hi, 100?
Song-Ho left Japan 25 years ago to live in North Korea, his parents and his little sister Rie stayed. Now, he comes back to receive medical treatment unavailable in the Worker’s Paradise on Earth. While he is stuck in his hopeless existence due to his family left in Korea, Rie does not accept her fate and tries to stay out of the influence of her so-called homeland.
Being the director’s first fictional work after doing several documentaries (which have also been shown at the Berlinale) it unsurprisingly has a very realistic style. Music can be found in the end, other than that the ambient noise of summer in Japan serves as a background. Of course we have our dreaded handheld cam which fortunately is quite stable most of the time and not at all hectic. It does not frame the scenery, rather following and observing the characters, which are the strong point of the movie. All performances were surprisingly good, both in awkwardness as in emotional explosions, however Sakura Andou is God! I probably haven’t said this clearly enough yet. She is the perfect actress for those slightly rebellious, slightly detached but nonetheless very emotional characters she portrays. It is almost a miracle how she manages to ooze attractiveness even though she just is not good-looking. The film definitely succeeds in portraying the helplessness and resignation of the whole family in dealing with the overbearing, often completely unreasonable “care” of their so-called homeland.
Unsurprisingly, Rie is an autobiographical figure. The director’s three brothers were also sent to North Korea and one of them actually really came back for treatment. Song-Ho’s character is an amalgamation of all three.