Previously on this blog, I have discussed certain aspects of
my own film-watching philosophy, in that I consider cinema to be an inherently
emotional art form and that it should be perceived and commented on as such.
However, I understand that there are parts of that mindset that contradict
others. Emotions are far from being simple things, considering we rarely if
ever experience just one of them on their own. By contrast, I tend to treat the
films I review on here in rather simple terms; this is why films like Moonlight
are as difficult to pin down as they are, since they actively go against my
usual ‘one and done’ methodology.
And sure enough, we have another example of
that today with quite possible the most perplexing emotional post-film reaction
I’ve gotten yet. Petulant anger, holding back tears, relief that came seemingly
out of nowhere? I barely know how to process these feelings in real life, let
alone writing about them at length in connection to fiction. Nonetheless, let’s
press forward with this incredibly odd feature.
The plot: Shōya (Miyu Irino), a school bully, finds himself
isolated from everyone else after he bullies a new student, a deaf child named
Yuzuru (Aoi Yuki). Years later, and now in high school, he meets Yuzuru again
and wants to make up for his past discretions. However, as he reconnects with
his past classmates, he discovers that the road to redemption is a lot bumpier
than it looks.
However inadvertent it may have been, this film is already
off to a promising start with its themes of the general difficulties when it
comes to communication. I say this because I wound up watching the Japanese
subbed version of this film at my local cinema. I haven’t really gotten into
this at any real length before but I do try to avoid anime subs as best I can
because, quite frankly, I have enough difficulty reading emotions off of other
people when they are speaking a language that I can understand. This will
unfortunately mean that I won’t be doing my usual cast rundown as per usual
with my reviews, although in fairness the acting is pretty decent across the
board, but like I said, it unintentionally manages to get that theme across
before the first frame of the film even starts. It takes something quite
special to be able to do that, regardless of circumstances.
As the film kicks off, we essentially get a snapshot of our
characters in elementary school, complete with all the social awkwardness and
unintended hostility that comes with it. However, this ends up taking up far
less of the running time than would be expected, with most of it spent with
these characters during their high school years. Regardless, what does this
film have to say about the social interactions of the young? Honestly, an awful
lot, to the point where I am still trying to process everything after having
seen it. Anyone who has kept up with my reviews for any amount of time will
know that this is quite an anomaly. Starting off with characters who may be in
varying places on the scale of likeability, from the eventually sympathetic
Shōya to the terminally hateful Naoka, the film gives all of them a startling
amount of believability that these are close facsimiles of the real world,
resulting in a film that cuts very close to the grain in much the same way The
Breakfast Club did way back when in its rather unflinching look at teenaged
relationships and the internal politics that informs them.
This leads to quite a few humourous moments throughout as we
watch these kids bicker with each other and get into… let’s say rather bizarre
situations. I get the feeling that this is where the sub situation becomes a
double-edged sword because there’s definitely a few scenes that feel incredibly
out-of-place and probably only make sense if you understand Japanese. There’s
something about the use of puns, a form of comedy that does not translate well
across the language barrier, which can be a bit alienating. Of course, this
film can feel disjointed anyway with how it will occasionally flashback to
scenes that aren’t even in the film proper. It’s an incredibly disorienting
experience when the film is at its most oblique, but thankfully, that doesn’t
happen too often. Hell, as much as the whole “characters who are meant to be
hated” style of writing may irk, that same sense of realism lends a lot of
credibility to this film’s funnier moments.
Truth be told, I am still working through this film even as
I write this, but one definite feeling came across as I left the cinema: Anger.
Specifically, anger at how Shōya’s character is handled. Now, showing him
initially as a school bully was risky but it did end up creating a nice
contrast to the very isolated, very depressed person he would become in his
teens. However, while the film turns out what are honestly a couple of pretty
tone-deaf moments concerning thoughts of suicide, it does end up making you
sympathize with him and his want to be a better person. This ends up doing the
film a serious disservice though because, for the entire film, he is basically
treated like he is either the same person he was back then or still needs to
punished for what he did, as if his own brain isn’t doing that for him already.
Knowing my own difficulties in any form of socialisation for the entirety of my
schooling experience, I can’t help but be extremely angry at this framing.
Putting aside the simple fact that most if not all primary schoolers are little
hellions in their own right, making him hardly the only one worth scorn,
there’s also how he does indeed end up being the only one who appears to need
to be taught a lesson. When you have Naoka, a repentant bitch who never
progressed past the forced social mentality of her younger self, in the same
scene, that is not something that
should be brought across. Add to this a rather hazy character arc, if it can
even be considered one, and what I genuinely feel to be a wrong approach with
the film focusing on his self-isolation more than the (understandable and
rather justified) reasons for that self-isolation.
All in all, I get the feeling that this film will leave me
with a better impression if I was to watch it again. For right now though, I
can’t really say that I enjoyed this. Maybe that was the point, that I was
meant to feel sorry for Shōya, but with how the film presents not only him but
the characters and scenes around him, it just feels like they’re beating down
this kid even though he is actively trying to do better. As someone who has had
to wrestle with the odd demon in the past, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for
this method.
No comments:
Post a Comment