In a film about feelings, Still Walking covers a day in the life of a modern Japanese family with traditional values at its core. The family reunites once a year to commemorate the death of the parent’s favourite son. He died saving another boy from drowning. For the second son, Ryota (Hiroshi Abe), the gatherings are painful he believes his father would have preferred him to drown instead. Ryota is accompanied by his new wife and son, while his sister reluctantly brings her family. The film creates an atmosphere of suppressed tension, hurt and loss the wrong son died.
Described as a tender humanist, director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Maborosi 1995, After Life 1998, Nobody Knows 2004) is increasingly seen as a master filmmaker and Yasujiro Ozu’s (Late Spring, Early Summer, Tokyo Story) natural successor. Kore-Eda often examines the themes of death and loss in his films and Still Walking continues the motif. Here as writer-director he has produced a subtle, sensitive film with naturalistic dialogue and low-key acting, where feelings are portrayed without melodrama and issues are not resolved in 24 hours. The audience is drawn in by empathic connection with the characters.
The impact of Still Walking’s grace and understated emotion was enough to beat the likes of Hanneke (White Ribbon) and Claire Denis (35 Shots of Rum) for Best Director awards in a number of international film festivals.
The writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda, who made the brilliant After Life, has the imaginative sympathy of a great novelist, unsparing yet not unforgiving in his examination of a family held together by habit, regret and, ultimately, an unspoken love. Anthony Quinn, The Independent.
Kore-eda is magician-like in his ability to make the tiniest detail – a butterfly, a flower, a glass of iced tea, a glance – seem huge. He is without a doubt one of the worlds most sensitive filmmakers, and his powers, are peaking. Don Wilmott, filmcritic.com
One positions Still Walking in the firmament of Japans cinematic achievements, one thing is sure it belongs up there with the masters. TrevorJohnston, Sight and Sound.
