Otôto

I love Yoji Yamamda's films. His films seem to go directly to the heart of the human condition. I think I own almost all of them, so when "About Her Brother" was released, I immediately bought a copy sight unseen. I'm a little sorry I did so. "About Her Brother" is not an example of his usual fare. It seems more like Yoji Yamada took half a script from a Tora-san movie and grafted it onto the script for one of his standard serious dramas. The first half of the film follows, mostly, the comings and goings of a goofy Tora-san-like brother who goes beyond just measure in trying to draw laughs. It really is painful to watch the over acting. The second half of the film is more focused on the family members who suffer misery on the brother's account. Rather than rush out and buy a copy, I would advise movie fans to see it in the theater or rent the DVD first, and then make a decision on whether to buy it or not.

After enjoying "Kabe" immensely, I was really looking forward to seeing this movie. It did not disappoint. It had all the Yoji Yamada touches. The strong central characters with comic relief provided by the excellent supporting cast. The sense of changing seasons. The low angle Ozu-type end-of-scene shots. Most of all, the celebration of the lives of regular people and a heartfelt salute to those who quietly give their all, everyday. Like all Yamada movies, this movie is full of heart - you laugh, you cry. There are no special effects and no animation - just a lot of love. I will watch anything this guy writes or directs. I'm glad the Berlin Film Festival Board seems to feel the same way too.

Saw this movie in flight on Cathy Pacific between Beijing and Hong Kong.

Yoshinaga Sayuri still looks amazingly good given her age. Yu Aoi is somewhat wasted in a supporting role. Most of the movie is about the relationship between Yoshinaga Sayuri's character and her life-long loser little brother. Although the start of the movie is sort of funny in a cringe inducing way, as the movie progresses the little bit of funniness disappears and it drags on and on in the misery. Perhaps the dedication of the all volunteer hospice shown in the movie is somehow supposed to be uplifting. Of course technical aspects of the movie are fine - well shot with elegant understated photography.

In "About Her Brother," Kohoru, a pretty young lady who works in the local pharmacy of her mother in a Tokyo suburb, is talking about her Uncle Tetsuro, her mother's younger brother, who is the family black sheep, for being a loser and a drunk. Her mother, the long-suffering Mrs. Ginko Takano, is the only family member who remained sympathetic to Tetsuro despite all the trouble and humiliation he has caused them.

The movie is two-hours long and slow to unfold despite the predictable story. The first part showing the shameful callous idiocy of Tetsuro was very difficult to watch. His foolishness at Kohoru's wedding and the huge unpaid debt he has incurred will make you feel so indignant. Yet, by the last thirty minutes, you would not be able to control your tears as those last heart-rending scenes squeeze them out of you.

This film's success I attribute solely to the sublime performance of Ms. Sayuri Yoshinaga as Ginko. Despite the movie being told in Kohoru's point of view, it is Ginko's quiet dignity and selflessness is the elegant heart and soul of this film. What Ginko goes through in this movie for her younger brother is harrowing and difficult, and many people now may not understand why she did what she did. But Ms. Yoshinaga's Ginko was so real. We feel her as our own mother.

This is a rare movie that tells about an older sister-younger brother relationship. I hope to see director Yoji Yamada's other films about Japanese family life. My introduction to Japanese film was a movie about a Japanese family, Ozu's fascinating "Tokyo Story". The emotions "About Her Brother" evokes in its final quarter somewhat reminded me of Ozu's work. The beautiful Asian sense of self-sacrifice in the name of family was showcased in its restrained nobility.

In my review of Yoji Yamada's previous film, Kabei: Our Mother (2009), I observed that the film returned "to an era of Japanese film-making…of traditionalism and conservatism best exemplified by the films of Yasujiro Ozu." A scene in Yamada's latest picture, About Her Brother, further illustrates the Ozu influence. The scene shows a woman peeling off the skin of an apple in a circular motion with a small cutter.

This triggers my memory of the final scene in Ozu's Late Spring (1949) in which an old man uses a knife to slowly peel a circular layer off an apple skin, which then drops to the ground, signaling a chapter of life passed. In About Her Brother, it suggests the inevitability of death. Or perhaps to some, it may be read as "cause and effect".

About Her Brother is a story on family relationships, in particular the brother-sister bond. Sayuri Yoshinaga plays a widow who has a daughter who is about to marry a rich doctor. During her daughter's wedding, her heavily ostracized and unwanted brother (played by Tsurube Shofukutei) makes a drunken appearance, spoiling the grand occasion. The sister-brother bond is further strained in the course of the film, but the unconditional love of the sister for her brother becomes a huge factor in reconciliation.

About Her Brother continues the trend of impressive output by one of Japan's finest contemporary filmmakers. The film has a solid script, written with the astute knowledge of modern Japanese middle-class families. It also addresses social issues such as the plight of the poor, who live lonely lives at the fringes of an affluent society. However, in its core, the film asks of the question: Whose fault is it when a person is raised to be "a failure in life"? The family? The state? Or his/her own? Starting out as funny in a serious kind of way (as the brother ruins the wedding), the film progresses into a powerful melodrama crafted with skill under the hands of Yamada. The direction is honest, especially in the capturing of the cast's performances. Yamada goes into the heart of each character's emotional state, delicately coercing the actors to not dominate the screen but to allow their emotions to play off each other naturalistically.

While the final thirty minutes of About My Brother is heart-wrenching, the most effective tearjerking scene (in my opinion) comes when the mother and her daughter share an intimate moment of hope – the latter tells her mother that she wishes to remarry – a brief moment that interrupts their worrying thoughts about life in which they both gladly accept and pause to embrace.

About Her Brother is an excellent picture by Yamada. The performances by the cast alone are worth the ticket price. This is restrained melodrama that works without being sappy or overly self-conscious of its aim to tug at our heartstrings. Last year, we had Departures (2009), a Japanese tearjerker that competed and won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 2008, and topped my list of Top Ten Films of 2009. This year, we have About Her Brother, which is nearly just as good.

SCORE: 9/10 (www.filmnomenon.blogspot.com) All rights reserved!