Tag: Mayumi Wakamura

What Happened to Our Nest Egg!? (老後の資金がありません！, Tetsu Maeda, 2021)

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A minor controversy erupted in Japan in 2019 when then finance minister Taso Aso issued a statement recommending that couples should have 20 million yen (£104,620 total at the time of writing) saved for their retirement on top of the state pension in order to live a comfortable life in old age. All things considered, 20 million yen actually sounds like quite a low sum for two people who might live another 30 years post-employment. Nevertheless, Atsuko (Yuki Amami) and her husband Akira (Yutaka Matsushige) are now in their mid-50s and don’t have anywhere near that amount in savings. They’re still paying off their mortgage and though their children are grown-up, neither of them seem to be completely independent financially and both still live at home. 

Tetsu Maeda’s familial comedy What Happened to Our Nest Egg!? (老後の資金がありません！, Rogo no shikin ga arimasen!) explores the plight of the sandwich generation which finds itself having to support elderly relatives while themselves approaching retirement and still needing to support their children who otherwise can’t move forward with their lives. Seeing an accusatory ad which seems to remind her personally that even 20 million yen isn’t really enough when you take into consideration the potential costs of medical treatment or a place in a retirement home, Atsuko has a sudden moment of panic over their precarious financial situation. The apparently sudden death of Akira’s 90-year-old father acts as a sharp wake up call especially as Akira’s apparently very wealthy but also selfish and materialistic sister Shizuko (Mayumi Wakamura) bamboozles him into paying for the entirety of the funeral while pointing out that they’ve been footing most of the bill for the parents’ upkeep over the last few years.

There was probably a better time to discuss the financial arrangements than with their father on his deathbed in the next room, but in any case Shizuko doesn’t pay attention to Atsuko’s attempt to point out they’ve been chipping in too. Akira’s mother Yoshino (Mitsuko Kusabue) also reminds them that their family was once of some standing and a lot of people will be attending the funeral so they need to make sure everything is done properly. The funeral arranger is very good at her job and quickly guilts Atsuko into spending large sums of money on pointless funeral pomp to avoid causing offence only to go to waste when hardly anyone comes because, as she later realises, all of the couple’s friends have already passed away, are bedridden, or too ill to travel. 

Yoshino is however in good health. When Shizuko suddenly demands even more money for her upkeep, Atsuko suggests Yoshino come live with them but it appears that she has very expensive tastes that don’t quite gel with their ordinary, lower-middle class lifestyle. Having lived a fairly privileged life and never needing to manage her finances, Yoshino has no idea of the relative value of money and is given to pointless extravagance that threatens to reduce Atsuko’s dwindling savings even more while in a moment of cosmic irony both she and Akira are let go from their jobs. Now they’re in middle age, finding new ones is almost impossible while their daughter suddenly drops the bombshell that she’s pregnant and is marrying her incredibly polite punk rocker boyfriend whose parents run a successful potsticker restaurant and are set on an elaborate wedding.

The film seems to suggest that Atsuko and Akira can’t really win. They aren’t extravagant people and it just wasn’t possible for them to have saved more than they did nor is it possible for them to save more in the future. Instead it seems to imply that what they should do is change their focus and the image they had of themselves in their old age. One of the new colleagues that Akira meets in a construction job has moved into a commune that’s part of the radical new housing solution invented by his old friend Tenma (Sho Aiwaka). Rather than building up a savings pot, the couple decide to reduce their expenses by moving into a share house and living as part of a community in which people can support each other by providing child care and growing their own veg. Yoshino too comes to an appreciation of the value of community and the new exciting life that she’s experienced since moving in with Atsuko. It may all seem a little too utopian, but there is something refreshing in the suggestion that what’s needed isn’t more money but simply a greater willingness to share, not only one’s physical resources but the emotional ones too in a society in which everyone is ready to help each other rather than competing to fill their own pots as quickly as possible. 

What Happened to Our Nest Egg!? screens as part of this year’s Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme.

Trailer (English subtitles)

Mio’s Cookbook (みをつくし料理帖, Haruki Kadokawa, 2020)

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“Food nurtures like heaven” according to a piece of advice from a local doctor which quickly becomes a catchphrase of the heroine of Haruki Kadokawa’s slice of foodie cinema Mio’s Cookbook (みをつくし料理帖, Mi wo Tsukushi Ryoricho). Adapted from the novel by Kaoru Takada, the Meiji-era drama is at once a tale of a pioneering young woman making her way in fiercely patriarchal society, and a heartwarming exploration of chosen and re-formed families discovering new senses of solidarity in the of wake tragedy while resolving to extend that sense of community to other lonely souls. 

The titular Mio (Honoka Matsumoto) meanwhile has had her share of loss, orphaned during a catastrophic flood and thereafter separated from childhood best friend Noe (Nao Honda) who simply disappeared. 10 years later, Mio and her adoptive mother Yoshi (Mayumi Wakamura) have relocated from Osaka to Edo though their lives have not been easy, Yoshi’s son having run off never to be seen again following the failure of the family restaurant. Mio is now working in a small cafe owned by a kindly older gentleman, Taneichi (Koji Ishizaka), but struggling to adapt to the sophisticated tastes of the capital with customers flatly refusing to eat her overly subtle oysters. A sullen samurai, Komatsubara (Yosuke Kubozuka), points her on her way by explaining that her food lacks “foundation” which is why she hasn’t yet found her groove. 

Mio’s culinary journey is also one of growing confidence as she learns to reorient herself in her new city life eventually realising that the key lies in uniting the tastes of Osaka and Edo as if integrating the two cities into her essential identity. A fortune teller had once told her that she would suffer many hardships but eventually reach “blue sky beyond clouds”, discovering a taste of that in her unexpected success even as those around her marvel at the female chef, a hitherto unheard of phenomenon, as she climbs the ranks of the local restaurants with her innovative cuisine after taking over from Taneichi. 

Yet her success also brings her enemies in the conservative and increasingly greedy Edo society. A rival restaurant rips off her signature dish and charges twice the price, a customer admitting that many will gladly pay more just to be seen doing so, less interested in the quality of the food than what is fashionable (times it seems do not change all that much). Even so “food is only as good as the cook” Yoshi is fond of saying believing that a bad person can’t make good food, something brought out by Mio’s compassionate nature as she continues to help those around her, vowing to “take vengeance through food” in concentrating on perfecting her craft and nourishing people’s souls rather than allowing herself to be beaten into submission by elitist intimidation. 

Meanwhile she continues to wonder whatever happened to Noe, reflecting that she was lucky in having found Yoshi who took her in out of compassion and continues to stay with her all these years later while gaining a surrogate father in the kindly Taneichi who himself lost a daughter. Noe’s prophecy was that she would “rise like the sun” and achieve “world-conquering fortune” though as it turns out she was not so lucky even if the prophecy did in fact come true if ironically. Both women continue to suffer because of the world in which they live each prevented from pursuing their romantic freedom, Mio forced to give up on her probably impossible love for samurai Komatsubara in order to embark on a quest to save her friend through achieving true success with her restaurant while Noe is constrained by her inescapable life as an oiran.  

Even so the film never really digs into the division placed between the women by the existence of the Yoshiwara into which one cannot enter and from which the other can never leave while the open ended conclusion that only advances a hope that the division may be breached perhaps suggests that it may never be, in part because it depends on Mio’s success as an independent woman in a feudalistic, patriarchal society. Meanwhile the two women continue to support each other in ways they can, Mio trying to raise her friend’s spirits with frequent care packages designed to remind her of home and their more innocent childhood smuggled in by supportive friends while each of them have in their own way found new families based on mutual compassion as a means of overcoming despair to rediscover a sense of hope for a better future founded on human solidarity. 

Mio’s Cookbook streams until 27th February in several territories as part of Japanese Film Festival Online 2022.

Original trailer (English subtitles)