Canary
Directed by Akihiko Shiota
at The Imaginasian
beginning July 25
Late Bloomer
Directed by Gô Shibata
at The Pioneer Theatre
July 25-31
Opening this week at under-the-radar venues are two contemporary Japanese films, both made a few years ago, that confront the ostracism that face two separate but equally shunned social castes, religious cult members and the handicapped. Both Akihiko Shiota’s Canary (2005) and Gô Shibata’s Late Bloomer (2004) not only recognize but embrace the hate and resentment that both groups live with. Their protagonists are determined to avenge their misery by killing anyone that makes them feel different.
Canary and Late Bloomer may both generically insist that revenge is not the answer that either Canary’s Koichi (Hoshi Ishida) or Late Bloomer’s Sumida (Masakiyo Sumida) seek, but these movies are otherwise as different as day and night. The biggest rift between the two films is how they respectively portray the supporting characters that surround both anguished recluses. While Canary sentimentally depicts the Nirvana cult—a fictional stand-in for Aum Shinrikyo, the notorious cult that released sarin gas in the Tokyo subways in 1995—as Koichi’s ideologically retroactive surrogate family, Late Bloomer keeps Sumida’s opinion of his rotating cast of caretakers a well-guarded secret locked behind his unhinged leer of a smile.
Canary only intermittently achieves that level of emotional complexity. Unlike Late Bloomer, where Sumida is surrounded by well-meaning friends one minute and exploitative voyeurs the next, Canary focuses on establishing a uniformly indifferent series of encounters that lead Koichi and Yuki (Mitsuki Tanimura), a 13-year-old prostitute he rescues from an abusive cop, back to Nirvana either in a flashback or in its present splintered form. On their way to retrieve Koichi’s sister and to attack the grandfather that separated them, Koichi and Yuki find themselves caught between an indifferent world and a vindictive family, a dilemma familiar to any domestic-abuse plot.
For the sake of maintaining the outside world’s steely indifference, Shiota rarely allows Koichi’s memories to go beyond a superficial portrayal of Nirvana as a family that doles out cruel punishment based on crueler dogmas. Shiota condemns the group for manipulating children instead of trying to relate with the adults that bring them to Nirvana. The “Parents are culpable,” according to the graffiti that covers Koichi’s old house in epithets like “Death Penalty” and “Aren’t you ashamed?” Whether or not the writing on the wall is the opinion of real people or appeared there on its own is anyone’s guess.
In fact, one of the most haunting scenes in Canary is when we hear that anger from a real person, namely Koichi’s grandfather (Tôru Shinagawa). When he tells Yuki why he needed to separate Koichi from his sister, the bitter venom in his voice is palpable. It’s also a breath of fresh air. Here Shiota miraculously lifts the gray haze that sheaths Koichi’s emotions in a prepubescent mask of anger and lets in some genuine pain.
It’s strange then that writer/director Gô Shibata is able to do so much more in Late Bloomer with Sumida, a character whose personality is submerged into the film’s aesthetic. Shibata makes his alternately sickening and stunning in-your-face handheld black-and-white camerawork a disorienting trip through Sumida’s psyche. Shibata’s visual prowess is a nervy grab for attention that sneers at Shiota’s portrayal of Koichi’s isolation as linear, slow and silent. Instead, Shibata fuses Sumida’s fractured personality into noisy digital shadows that frantically flutter across the screen only to fade away in slow motion.
That disjointed aesthetic makes Sumida’s mind-set grimy, hideously uncomfortable and truly confrontational. Viewers have to insert their opinions to fill in the gaps with which Shibata strategically punctuates Late Bloomer. In Canary, the audience is encouraged to sit back and allow sleepily serene scenes of quiet isolation to limit their opinions to tranquil tsk-tsks. Shibata’s film is a jigsaw puzzle where people are small parts of a picture of mental health. It may not look particularly stunning or insightful from a distance; but when viewed up close and in fragments, it’s a queasy stutter of rage that is impossible to ignore.
Directed by Akihiko Shiota
at The Imaginasian
beginning July 25
Late Bloomer
Directed by Gô Shibata
at The Pioneer Theatre
July 25-31
Opening this week at under-the-radar venues are two contemporary Japanese films, both made a few years ago, that confront the ostracism that face two separate but equally shunned social castes, religious cult members and the handicapped. Both Akihiko Shiota’s Canary (2005) and Gô Shibata’s Late Bloomer (2004) not only recognize but embrace the hate and resentment that both groups live with. Their protagonists are determined to avenge their misery by killing anyone that makes them feel different.
Canary and Late Bloomer may both generically insist that revenge is not the answer that either Canary’s Koichi (Hoshi Ishida) or Late Bloomer’s Sumida (Masakiyo Sumida) seek, but these movies are otherwise as different as day and night. The biggest rift between the two films is how they respectively portray the supporting characters that surround both anguished recluses. While Canary sentimentally depicts the Nirvana cult—a fictional stand-in for Aum Shinrikyo, the notorious cult that released sarin gas in the Tokyo subways in 1995—as Koichi’s ideologically retroactive surrogate family, Late Bloomer keeps Sumida’s opinion of his rotating cast of caretakers a well-guarded secret locked behind his unhinged leer of a smile.
Canary only intermittently achieves that level of emotional complexity. Unlike Late Bloomer, where Sumida is surrounded by well-meaning friends one minute and exploitative voyeurs the next, Canary focuses on establishing a uniformly indifferent series of encounters that lead Koichi and Yuki (Mitsuki Tanimura), a 13-year-old prostitute he rescues from an abusive cop, back to Nirvana either in a flashback or in its present splintered form. On their way to retrieve Koichi’s sister and to attack the grandfather that separated them, Koichi and Yuki find themselves caught between an indifferent world and a vindictive family, a dilemma familiar to any domestic-abuse plot.
For the sake of maintaining the outside world’s steely indifference, Shiota rarely allows Koichi’s memories to go beyond a superficial portrayal of Nirvana as a family that doles out cruel punishment based on crueler dogmas. Shiota condemns the group for manipulating children instead of trying to relate with the adults that bring them to Nirvana. The “Parents are culpable,” according to the graffiti that covers Koichi’s old house in epithets like “Death Penalty” and “Aren’t you ashamed?” Whether or not the writing on the wall is the opinion of real people or appeared there on its own is anyone’s guess.
In fact, one of the most haunting scenes in Canary is when we hear that anger from a real person, namely Koichi’s grandfather (Tôru Shinagawa). When he tells Yuki why he needed to separate Koichi from his sister, the bitter venom in his voice is palpable. It’s also a breath of fresh air. Here Shiota miraculously lifts the gray haze that sheaths Koichi’s emotions in a prepubescent mask of anger and lets in some genuine pain.
It’s strange then that writer/director Gô Shibata is able to do so much more in Late Bloomer with Sumida, a character whose personality is submerged into the film’s aesthetic. Shibata makes his alternately sickening and stunning in-your-face handheld black-and-white camerawork a disorienting trip through Sumida’s psyche. Shibata’s visual prowess is a nervy grab for attention that sneers at Shiota’s portrayal of Koichi’s isolation as linear, slow and silent. Instead, Shibata fuses Sumida’s fractured personality into noisy digital shadows that frantically flutter across the screen only to fade away in slow motion.
That disjointed aesthetic makes Sumida’s mind-set grimy, hideously uncomfortable and truly confrontational. Viewers have to insert their opinions to fill in the gaps with which Shibata strategically punctuates Late Bloomer. In Canary, the audience is encouraged to sit back and allow sleepily serene scenes of quiet isolation to limit their opinions to tranquil tsk-tsks. Shibata’s film is a jigsaw puzzle where people are small parts of a picture of mental health. It may not look particularly stunning or insightful from a distance; but when viewed up close and in fragments, it’s a queasy stutter of rage that is impossible to ignore.
