Country: Japan
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Length: 2 hours and 6 minutes
What Does It Elicit: Warmth and fuzziness and musings about family
Where To Watch: Amazon, GooglePlay ($3.99 to rent)
What makes a family? Do families emerge from kin ties or do we actively build our own? These are questions the Japanese film director Hirokazu Kore-eda has explored across numerous works, including his Cannes Palme D’Or-winning Shoplifters (2018). While Shoplifters is a great film, I want to begin this Substack with Kore-eda’s Our Little Sister. Why? First, after this past year it’s nice to find yourself in the midst of a beautiful sea-side town watching people eat delicious food, generally be kind to one another, and grapple with some fundamental questions about the beauty of family relationships in their complex varieties. This is one of those films where people have flaws, but all the characters remain deeply sympathetic.
Our Little Sister explores the lives of three sisters who welcome their half-sister into their home. All four share a father, now deceased, though the “little sister’s” mother, also deceased, broke up the marriage of her three half-sisters’s parents. If it sounds complicated, it really isn’t. The core of the film doesn’t revolve around the past, though it comes up. This isn’t overwrought family drama. Instead, the film possesses a certain chamber piece quality—reinforced by fade-outs and a series of almost self-contained vignettes which perhaps stem from its original manga series source material—all of which can camouflage the film’s ambition. This is a work thinking through some big questions about family relationships, gratitude, debt, and sacrifice. In addition, it offers breathtaking shots of the city of Kamakura, a sea-side town southwest of Tokyo, and a lot of delicious-looking food.
Go Down The Rabbit Hole With:
Yasujiro Ozu — Late Spring (1949)
Hirokazu Kore-eda — Shoplifters (2018)