From the lives of babes…
For American moviegoers, Tokyo may not seem like a place people would call home. We see, in magazines, movies and TV, a neon city of the future that is filled with busy, walking, bustling people unattached to actually living there, actually calling it "home."
Nobody Knows , from After Life writer/director Hirokazu Koreeda,
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shows a different side of Tokyo, a quieter, domestic and decidedly dark side. After being torn apart, that notion of home is reconstructed from the ruins.
The film opens as 12-year-old Akira (Yuya Yagira) and his mother, Keiko (You) move into a new apartment. The mother tells the landlord Akira is her only son, but we soon discover three other children-Kyoko (Ayu Kitaura), Shigeru (Hiei Kimura) and Yuki (Momoko Shimizu)-when they are unpacked from large suitcases. The children, none of whom attend school, are instructed to stay inside at all times and be quiet, keeping their presence a secret. When their mother is at work, Akira is left in charge.
Soon, their mother begins leaving for extended periods, only to appear a month later smiling with an armload of gifts. She finally abandons the kids for good leaving a simple note, a small stack of cash and the burden of adulthood for Akira.
Given the circumstances, one might expect a sinister villain of a mother, but Keiko is sweet, smiling and loving with her children in all ways (except the obvious). Before she leaves,
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however, we see more of the real Keiko-a selfish woman that, in many ways, is herself still a child. This a complicated character, always remaining marginally sympathetic.
Children handle the bulk of the acting, which only serves to enhance the power of the film. Yagira is incredible as Akira, carrying the film's emotional weight and appearing mature beyond his years. Akira isn't allowed to be a child through most of the film, but when he does, befriending two boys at an arcade, he does it out of anger, trying to get back at his mother for abandoning him. In these scenes, Yagira seems to be a different person, embracing the joy of forgetting his responsibilities.
In their abandonment, the kids make do the best they can, growing a garden in empty Styrofoam cups and using overdue utility bills as drawing paper, but underneath their resourcefulness and surface happiness is tremendous sadness and hopelessness. It's this emotional core, so devastating and real, that makes Nobody a moving and powerful film.
By the end, all the audience is hoping for a Daddy Warbucks to come along and adopt the children and take care of them, but that's the Hollywood ending. Here, there is no resolution; instead, things simply go on.
