Tomoyo Harada – Page 2 – Windows on Worlds

Summer of the Ubume Akio Jissoji has one of the most diverse filmographies of any director to date. In a career that also encompasses the landmark tokusatsu franchise Ultraman and a large selection of children’s TV, Jissoji made his mark as an avant-garde director through his three Buddhist themed art films for ATG. Summer of Ubume (姑獲鳥の夏, Ubume no Natsu) is a relatively late effort and finds Jissoji adapting a supernatural mystery novel penned by Natsuhiko Kyogoku neatly marrying most of his central concerns into one complex detective story.

Freelance writer Tatsumi Sekiguchi (Masatoshi Nagase) and occult expert Kyogokudo (Shinichi Tsutsumi) become intrigued by the bizarre story of a woman who has apparently been pregnant for twenty months. If that weren’t enough weirdness, the woman’s husband also went missing a year ago and now her sister has approached the pair hoping they can investigate and figure out what’s really going on. Unbeknownst to him, Sekiguchi has a longstanding connection with several of the people involved and himself plays a role in the central mystery. Demons foreign and domestic, past trauma, infanticide and multiple personality disorder are just some of the possible solutions but as Kyogokudo is keen to remind us, there is nothing in this world that is truly strange.

The mystery conceit takes the form of a classic European style detective story complete witha drawing room based finale in which each of our potential suspects is assembled for Kyogokudo so that he can deliver his final lecture and tick them all off the list as he goes along. The tale takes place in the summer of 1952 and so the spectre of Japan’s wartime past, as well as its growing future, both have a part to play in solving this extremely complex crime. The original supernatural question concerns two otherworldly entities which have become conflated – the Chinese Kokakucho which abducts children, and the Japanese Ubume which offers its child to passersby. Needless to say, the answer to all of our questions lies firmly within our own world and is in no small part the result of relentless cruelty masked as tradition.

The opening scene includes a lengthy discussion between Kyogokudo an Sekiguchi debating the nature of reality. We only experience the world as we perceive it, seeing and unseeing at will. Everybody, to an extent, sees what they need to see, therefore, memory proves an unreliable narrator when it comes to recalling facts which may run contrary to the already prepared narrative.

Jissoji brings his trademark surrealist approach to the material which largely consists of interconnecting flashbacks often intercut with other dreamlike imagery. Filming with odd angles and unusual camera movements, Jissoji makes the the regular world a destabilising place as the strange mystery takes hold. The canted angles and direct to camera approach also add to a slight hardboiled theme which creeps in around the otherwise European detective drama though this mystery is much more about solving a series of puzzles than navigating the dangerously dark world of the noir. That said this is a very bleak tale which, for all its frog faced children weirdness, has some extremely unpleasant human behaviour at its roots.

Supernatural investigator Kyogokudo quickly dispenses with the demonic in favour of the natural but the solutions to this extremely complicated set of mysteries are anything but simple. Making space for the original novel’s author to show up as a travelling picture storyteller with some Shigeru Mizuki inspired illustrations on his easel, Summer of Ubume is not entirely devoid of whimsy but its deliberately arch tone is one which it manages to make work with its already bizarre set up. The enemy is the unburied past, or more precisely the unacknowledged past which generates its own series of ghosts and phantasms, always lurking in the background and creating havoc wherever they go. Occasionally confusing, Summer of Ubume is a fascinating supernatural mystery which takes its cues much more from European detective stories and gothic adventure than from supernatural horror or fantastical ghost story.

Natsuhiko Kyogoku’s source novel is available in an English translation by Alexander O. Smith (published by Vertical in the US).

Original trailer (no subs):

Topping the “best of 2013” lists in both Kinema Junpo and Eiga Geijitsu (something of a feat in itself), Pecoross’ Mother and Her Days (ペコロスの母に会いに行く, Pecoross no Haha ni Ai ni Iku) is a much more populist offering than might be supposed but nevertheless effectively pulls at the heartstrings. Addressing the themes of elder care and senile dementia in Japan’s rapidly ageing society, the film is both a tribute to a son’s love for his mother and to the personal suffering that coloured the majority of the mid-twentieth century in Japan.

Based on a autobiographical manga by Yuichi Okano who uses Pecoross as his artistic name (it’s the name of a small onion and Yuichi thinks his head resembles one) Pecoross’ Mother and Her Days follows Yuichi in his daily life as he tries to adapt to his mother’s sharp decline. Yuichi is a multitalented artist who draws manga and also plays music at small bars around town, but neither of those pay very much so he also has a regular salaryman job that he’s always slacking off from. He’s also a widowed father with a grown-up son who is currently staying with Yuichi and his mother in the family home.

Ever since the death of Yuichi’s father a decade ago, his mother, Mitsue, has been gradually fading. First she was just forgetful but now she’s easily confused and distracted, often forgetting to put the telephone receiver back (though this does accidentally save her from an “ore ore” scam on the other end) or flush the toilet etc. When grandson Masaki finds her wandering the streets to buy alcohol for the long dead grandfather, the pair start to worry if she might be becoming a danger to herself and perhaps they really do need to consider more specialist care for her.

Of course, the decision to place an elderly parent in a home is a difficult one, especially in a culture where the elderly have traditionally been looked after by family. Generally, the daughter-in-law would end up being responsible for the often onerous task of caring for her in-laws as well as her husband, children and the household in general. Yuichi is a widower who can’t be home all day to watch to his mother and there’s always the fear that she might accidentally do harm to herself in her increasingly confused state.

Mitsue quite often becomes unstuck in time, remembering places and events from decades before as if there were happening right now. Born near Nagasaki, she remembers seeing the giant mushroom cloud rising from the atomic bomb and being worried for a young friend who’d been sent to the city only a short time before. The eldest of ten children she looks back on her childhood which had its fair share of hardships and loss. She became physically strong working in the fields and later married a weak willed man who took to drink and was often violent. Through her ruminations and fixations, Yuichi comes to discover a little more about his mother’s history deepening his respect for her and all that she endured in raising him.

The scene where Yuichi first leaves his mother at the home is heartbreaking as he slowly watches her receding in his rear view mirror, confused and hurt at having been abandoned. However, the staff at the care home are shown to be a group of dedicated and caring people who have the proper knowledge to fully cater to Mitsue’s needs. The other elderly residents each have very different symptoms from one woman who’s regressed to her childhood when she was class president at school and now thinks all the nurses are teachers, to a wheelchair bound man who keeps trying to inappropriately touch the female members of staff (though this is apparently just the way he is rather than any kind of condition). The home isn’t a sad place or a sterile one like a hospital, the guests are well stimulated, loved and cared for and Yuichi is welcome to visit and take his mother out on trips whenever he likes.

Though often sad, the events are depicted in the most humorous way possible often using the cute manga drawings Yuichi is making about his mother and there are also long stretches of animation reflecting on Mitsue’s life. The film is, however, unabashedly sentimental and proves a little too saccharine even if obviously sincere. Curiously pedestrian for such a highly praised film though anchored by superlative performances, Pecoross’ Mother and her Days perhaps plays better to a specific audience who are better placed to appreciate its historical meanderings and sweetly sentimental tone but may leave others feeling a little underwhelmed.

Reviewed as part of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2016.

Tag: Tomoyo Harada

Summer of Ubume (姑獲鳥の夏, Akio Jissoji, 2005)

Pecoross’ Mother and Her Days (ペコロスの母に会いに行く, Azuma Morisaki, 2013)