Starring: Yûya Yagira, Ayu Kitaura, Hiei Kimura

Written and directed by: Hirokazu Kore-eda

‘She doesn’t fit.’
‘Guess Yuki grew.’

This little known gem of a movie is an unflinching, poignant portrayal of a true incident, which happened in Japan in 1988, where a young mother left her four underage children alone in a cramped Tokyo apartment for an extended period. These children, born of different fathers, who had never gone to school, had to fend for themselves and survive.

In the first shot, we see the eldest kid, Akira traveling on the subway, with a suitcase between his legs. Then it cuts to the mother moving into a new apartment with Akira and two large suitcases. Once the packers leave, the first suitcase is opened and out pops an adorable little 5-year old girl, Yuki. Next to emerge is a panting 7-year old Shige-monster. Then Shigeru runs off to the railway station to get his sister, Kyoko. Her first question is about the washing machine. Over dinner, they are handed over a set of rules, no screaming, no loud noises, no going outside, not even the verandah. And so they are settled into a new home with umpteenth promises of a new and better life from their mother.

But soon, she gets a new boyfriend, who is ‘sweet and serious’. She tells Akira that it’s the real deal this time…and disappears with the guy leaving Akira, a small envelope of cash. She reappears once more, long after the money has run out, with gifts for the kids The same day, she packs up and leaves again promising to return for Christmas.

Days turn into weeks; weeks turn into months…the living conditions go from decent to bearable to horrific.

Even in this perilous situation, the kids manage to find little slivers of joy in planting seeds in empty noodle cups, in having a bath at the tap in a park, in doodling and fooling around, in doing whatever kids do. (With the risk of digressing, in this respect their situation brings to mind the story of Apu and Durga from Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali, how they learn to make their own toys and find their own little treasures.)

While the older kids Akira and Kyoko understand, Yuki and Shigeru keep hoping for the return of their mother.

On Yuki’s birthday, in a moving sequence, Akira takes her outside the house to the station to ‘receive mom’. After waiting for a few hours they start walking back. They stop and look at a train rushing by. The train goes to Haneda, where the planes are…Akira promises Yuki that he would take her to see the planes one day. He fulfils his promise…but only after their situation has reached its inevitable tragic end.

The mother played by Japanese popstar, You, is not depicted as an unfeeling, callous monster of a parent. She herself is a child-woman, who can’t help but lurch from one misstep to the next in her life, dragging her children along.

Akira is played by 12-year old Yuya Yagira in a powerful and understated performance. He won the best actor at Cannes’04 for this role.

He is the one in charge, who has to assume responsibility. He tries his best but you can see the desperation creeping in gradually. He himself is only a kid…he tries to make friends…but fails miserably…the look on his face when he gets to play a real game of baseball with other kids speaks volumes expressing his suppressed desires to live a normal life, to be a kid for once.

In this movie, the director Hirokazu Kore-eda has presented a less grim version of the actual events. And the sensitive understatement, the absolute refusal to sensationalize the story transforms the narrative into something unique- a delicate and touching existential tale.

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