Learning to live with loss is difficult for any family, but when the loss was caused by suicide the pain is even more acute as those left behind try to understand why it is their loved one had to die and if there was anything else they could have done to prevent it. The family at the centre of Lying to Mom (鈴木家の嘘, Suzukike no Uso) choose, initially at least, to avoid dealing with it at all. Each taking their individual paths through grief, they keep the past painfully alive by pretending that oldest son Koichi (Ryo Kase) is only temporarily absent and will eventually return.
Koichi, who has been a hikikomori for many years, takes one last look at the peaceful suburban scene outside his window and hangs himself from a storage closet in his room. His mother Yuko (Hideko Hara), out at the time, only discovers the body when trying to get him to come down to lunch. Panicked, she injures herself and ends up in a coma in hospital while nothing could be done for Koichi. When she wakes up some time later, she’s lost all her memories of the incident and the family don’t have the heart to tell her that her son is gone so they pretend he went to work for his uncle in Argentina.
This is of course very comforting to Yuko who now believes that as a result of her illness Koichi has finally been able to leave his room for a more productive life, but it places a strain on the other family members – father Yukio (Ittoku Kishibe) and daughter Fumi (Mai Kiryu), who remain conflicted about keeping up the pretence while dealing with their own grief in secret. Fumi, whose idea it was to lie in the first place, types out beautiful letters supposedly from Koichi to be handwritten in his handwriting by an associate in Argentina which detail his new life full of freedom and promise overseas.
Meanwhile, Yukio ponders on his relationship with his son with whom he admits he never quite bonded. He sets about trying to find a mysterious woman named on Koichi’s life insurance policy less for practical reasons than to ascertain some sort of evidence that his son lived, even if he lived the last years of his life alone in a room. The reasons for Koichi’s isolation are never exactly explained with Yuko blaming high school bullying and the stagnant economy, but it is clear that he never managed to find himself in Japan and perhaps if he really had gone to Argentina things might have been different.
Wracked with guilt, Fumi finds herself trying out a support group for relatives of those who died by suicide but struggles to put her own thoughts in order. Though people try their best, insensitivity reigns when they try to offer words of condolence. Only love can save people, Fumi’s colleague smugly tells her with a random story about coaxing a shy high school student out their room, little realising he’s tacitly accusing her of not trying hard enough to save her brother. People can’t be saved, Fumi retorts, and she might well have a point. Even the leader of the support group shows himself up when he considers banning a grief-stricken woman with a loud personality because her problems are “smaller” seeing as she’s wealthy. As another attendee tells him, people grieve in different ways and having money or not is unlikely to affect the degree of your emotional pain even if it might in some sense reduce the burden. Besides, his assumptions about her are mostly wrong because he’s not been paying attention to the things that really matter only to his own surface level prejudices.
Despite the prevalence of suicide, the Suzukis still find themselves embarrassed by Koichi’s passing. They tell people it was an illness or avoid mentioning it all. Meanwhile they keep the secret from Yuko and avoid talking about it amongst themselves until finally forced to deal with all of their anger, guilt, pain and confusion. A comforting lie may serve its purpose, but only an emotional reckoning can clear the air. There may be no real answer to why Koichi did what he did, but the Suzukis will have to make their peace with it, finding fresh hope in the process as they begin to repair their emotional wounds together as a family.
Lying to Mom was screened as part of the 2019 Udine Far East Film Festival. It will also be screened at the 2019 Nippon Connection Film Festival on 30th May at 7.30pm.
International trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 