Top Story: 1.July 2007
Nobody Knows
Hirokazu Koreeda's film in 2004 shocked the audience. Nobody Knows (Daremo Shiranai) is inspired by real story that took place in Tokyo. Mother left her children behind, and literally, nobody knew.
Four siblings live happily with their mother in a small apartment in Tokyo. The children all have different fathers and have never been to school. During moving to the new apartment, mother packed the smallest ones to suitcase to conceal their existence from the strict landlord.
Nobody Knows (Daremo Shiranai)
One day, the mother leaves to Osaka, leaving behind a little money and a note, charging her oldest boy Akira (Yûya Yagira) to look after the others. And so begins the children's journey, an odyssey nobody knows. Though engulfed by the cruel fate of abandonment, the four children do their best to survive in their own little world, devising and following their own set of rules.
A little is known of the mother, except that she wants to be famous singer, and stays overnight who knows where.
The children try to manage as best as they can. Eventually they cannot pay the bills, and the electricity and water stops. And then, Akira meets lovely Kyoko (Ayu Kitaura).
He is afraid that the social workers would separate the siblings from each other. So together, they decide not to tell adults what happened.
But eventually, when the children are forced to engage with the world outside their cocooned universe, the fragile balance that has sustained them collapses.
In their hidden world, they long for their long lost mother.
The character of mother Keiko (played by You) is interesting. She is beautiful and attractive and warm for the children, but at the same time, unforgivably careless and an obvious drunkard.
The movie's style is documentary. Everything is portrayed simply as it is. The camerawork is fantastic, the camera moves very naturally and the viewer soon starts to feel like living with the young characters in their hidden world. The camera picks up toy piano, PET bottles, plants, dirt, everything young children sees. Things we adults don't usually notice.
There is some feeling of Ozu in camera angles and calm atmosphere. Koreeda's earlier film "Maborosi" (1995) had same, calm and philosophical touch.
Nobody Knows is a movie everyone should see. But this movie isn't movie about Japan's social tendency or problem. It just happens to be the context (well, it feels shockingly realistic). The movie is story of these young, innocent people and their experiences. The movie underlines nothing and has neither statement or opinion. This movie is one of the movies I never forget.
Koreeda is certainly one of the best directors of Japan. Nobody Knows got 13 prizes, including Best Actor (Yûya Yagira) in Cannes.
