Berlinale 2014, Day 2 (Doshaburi)

Originally our plan was to see 4 movies today (yes, that’s right), but we didn’t get into “The Docks of New York” because we were too convinced we’d get a ticket for an old, obscure film at the Zeughauskino. Well, we were wrong. Incidentally this was the only time we didn’t get a ticket for something, and so “Doshaburi” was our last film for the day.

The director’s son was present with his wife, all dressed up in a kimono. He seemed extremely proud of his father’s work and delighted to present it at the Berlinale. It was rather cute how they were standing at the exit bowing at the audience passing by, so I bowed as well.

Doshaburi (When it rains, it pours)
Japan 1957, Noboru Nakamura, 105’

Because her family runs a love hotel, the main character’s boyfriend dumps her. On top of all that, her mother and father are not married but they hide that from the children – the older daughter and (mostly) protagonist of the story, a younger brother who takes his rather miserable social position with a grain of salt, and a younger daughter, who starts out being a very cheerful girl. After the protagonist runs away from home to work in a cabaret and that man finds her there, the family crumbles slowly.
Death count: 2.

On the one hand, the film is a somewhat cheap melodrama. The storyline is rather over the top, and at times you feel like watching a soap opera. I also have a personal disliking for the ending, because it suggests that the parents are carrying some sort of guilt, when (from today’s standards) they absolutely did nothing wrong. They were in love but an unfortunate situation made him marry somebody else. That doesn’t make the family “bad”. Apart from this personal reservation, the strangest thing about the film was how un-Japanese everybody was acting. For some reason, everybody always spoke their mind! Especially that youngest daughter did, which shocked me the most. In what society can children tell their parents “Mom, dad, please break up”? I couldn’t say such a thing in my fairly open family from 2014, let alone in the 50s in Japan. Of course this kind of openness is necessary for the melodrama to take place, and one could of course also argue that the family in the story is far from normal, hence their relative openness to each other. Even so, a little suspense of disbelief is necessary here.

If you can ignore how incredibly in-your-face this movie is, then it’s a masterpiece. The story is told in a very gripping manner, all the actors are pros and well-cast, but most importantly the story made me care for its characters. I am fascinated by the family’s struggle with its problematic social situation and subsequent downward spiral. It’s a film about how everybody in this family loves each other, but society’s judgement on them weighs so heavily that they cannot be happy despite that. I thought that was beautiful.