Still Walking, on and on...
For the love of God, please go out and watch this thing.
"Still Walking", made in 2008, was directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda and is about a family re-uniting on a rather important day to them. The son, Ryota, just married a widow with her young son, and his sister, Chinami, meet up at their parents house, a retired doctor and his wife.
I really rather not discuss the plot any further, as to do so would ruin its pacing. The film has a very, very similar style to something out of an Ozu film. It's very naturalistic, using the same style of barely moving the camera outside of cuts. When I say naturalistic, I mean it in the sense that everything flows together. I got sucked into its sense of time, and lost track of my own.
The music is a standout as well, being very calming, and owning that sense of peace. It's worth a listen on its own.
In regards to tone, I would contrast it to Tokyo Story. Whereas Tokyo Story is sort of melancholic, and has an undercurrent of sadness, Still Walking has an undercurrent of bitterness and remorse. Promises made are promises forgotten. The inability to let go and move on with one's life, and the inability to remember and honor those lost properly; both are front and center and scrutinized.
Despite all of that, it never boils over into melodrama. It never overtly tries to tug at your strings, or makes it feel as if it is saying "This is a sad scene, please be sad at the sad scene." It simply presents itself, and once the film ends, it ends.
It doesn't look back on itself, it doesn't reflect. What Still Walking does, is manage to make you look back on personal life experiences, and reflect on how you handled it.
Real talk for a second. I had lost a classmate of mine two months before graduation in a snowmobiling accident. It hurt. For a few days after that news hit, it still hurt. However, I was able to make my peace and I had to move on. On the other side of that coin, I had classmates who were completely shut down for the entire month (rightly so). I saw myself, and my classmates in Still Walking. I saw the willingness, almost the hastiness, of me wanting to move past this event and just not let it hurt me anymore. I saw the unwillingness to accept that this event had happened, and the outpouring of my classmates months after everything had settled down.
How much Still Walking affects you, the person reading this, depends on what you have experienced in your life in regards to loss. Whether it be a loved one, or a limb. Regardless of your circumstances, Still Walking is a movie that everyone should see, because it is a phenomenal movie that doesn't treat its story with sentimentality, and it treats its viewers with respect.
