It is ironic that this eighth day of the Berlinale coincides so well with my blogging fatigue. After this day, I totally did not feel like any more Berlinale days anymore. I had tickets for five more films (one on Saturday, four on Sunday), and I ended up watching those and not a single one more. Incidentally, I was very happy with my choices both for Saturday and Sunday, but overall I also thought enough was enough.
In that respect, Day 8 was probably the worst day of the Berlinale. While every other day had at least one title I was unabashedly fascinated with or at least loved very much, this day had one fine film and a few more films which I enjoyed rather little.
Wa ga ya wa tanoshii (Home Sweet Home)
Japan 1951, Noboru Nakamura, 91’
The Uemura family is held by a loving bond, with an earnest, hard-working father and a mother who is willing sacrifice her all to help her children achieve their dreams. The older daughter, Tomoko, studies painting and tries to have her works accepted at a gallery; the younger daughter, Nobuko, sings in a choir and is about to go on a school trip; finally there also are two younger children who are happily tumbling around. As the family is struggling with money even though the mother is working on the side, lucky and unlucky things happen to the family as time goes on. But the bond remains strong.
Death count: 0.
In reference to the introduction above, this film is the “fine” one. I really liked “Doshaburi” which resonated with me deeply, but I had doubts about the descriptions of the director’s other two films which are shown at the Berlinale. We thought that “Wa ga ya wa tanoshii” sounded like the better one of the two, promising to be at least a sweet story with the wonderful Chishu Ryu. Well, I’d say the film starts really well, with a loving family and many sweet scenes in which everybody gathers, but then it digs rather deeply into the sappy relationship between the mother and Tomoko and that, coupled with a convenient deus ex machina ending, made me feel a little cheated out of a perfectly cute film.
I really think that what I like the most about Noboru Nakamura’s films is the way he depicts families which love each other (at least in “Doshaburi” and “Wa ga ya wa tanoshii”). The opposite of that is the very reason I dislike Hirokazu Koreeda, where I thought that both “Nobody knows” and “Still Walking” are both based on neglect and hatred. Maybe “Soshite chichi ni naru” is better than that (and honestly I am very curious about the film). Coming back to Nakamura, his depictions may seem a little too idealized and melodramatic, but to me they absolutely feel realistic. As long as it touched me, I believe there is some positive connection between what Nakamura shows and what I feel about family relationships. I have just dismissed the deus ex machina ending in the story but the truth is that I found it emotionally satisfying, completing the little fairy tale Nakamura crafted.