Soranin

Japanese cinema often excels in portraying themes related to youth and the machinery of capitalism. This, of course, reflects the influence of the environment in which they live, one that greatly amplifies the difficulties of transitioning from childhood to adolescence, especially for certain groups.

In this film, we follow a group of young people who still hold a childlike view of what it means to grow up. To them, growing up means living a "boring" life and doing "things that are not fun." Maturity is seen as a destructive threat.

In Japan, the life of a "salaryman" often embodies exactly that.

As they reach an age where, though still young, they begin to confront expectations about their future, we witness how this group of friends slowly drifts apart and becomes engulfed in waves of melancholy. The transition in the film's color palette reflects this shift, moving from nostalgic imagery to one of wear and erosion, resembling, at moments of deeper crisis, faded and poorly preserved photographs. The cinematography mirrors the group's psychological state, oscillating between development and melancholy.

The main theme of the film is growth from the perspective of those who do not long for this new phase. It is youthful, nostalgic, and a journey of maturation, of overcoming, and yes, of pain, but one that is endured together as long as the strength of their bonds remains.

The film slavishly follows the manga, but cannot reproduce its languid graphic atmosphere, instead becoming tiresome. The characters (with the exception of the fat bass player) are also too good-looking for their parts.

By the way, 'solanin' refers to solanine -- the poison found in plants of the nightshade family and, more particularly, in potatoes when they begin to go green and sprout; this is referred to in the film -- although the rather poor English subtitles may not make it clear -- and alludes to the gifts of vegetables sent by Meiko's mother which are allowed to rot. (Japanese is full of words that sound like they could mean one thing but actually mean something else...)

This review's more for those who have read the source material, so if you need a summary of the story use Google.

Based on genius Inio Asano's work by the same name; Solanin. There's several attempts to make a live action adaptation to a Anime or Manga, and many of them don't do the source material justice at all.. The studios focus too much on their own interpretation of the source material (death note, DBZ) or simply the obvios issue there's too much content to pack into a film. Solanin is not one of those. It's a very good adaptation for what it was working with. The actors were very good and fit the roles given very well even in appearance (which is surprisingly something some adaptations done even try to get right) Aoi Miyazaki honestly looks like a copy of Meiko too. Soundtrack was very good as well, more so having Asian Kung fu generation perform the ending theme and gave us the actual song "Solanin" performed by them, makes a bigger impact given how the Manga itself onviously can't give its readers a live performance. With its accuracy to the story itself the film couldn't go word for word for reasons being how Inio Asano's works are. For sure they never dissapoint, with the content itself, it's very dialogue heavy with the more heavy themes being discussed by monologues usually something the film does a bit. The art as we know asano loves taking some odd liberties with making some humans look very exaggerated, symbolism displayed in interesting ways and the beautiful still panels which the film can't do without some CGI work, does have a couple of still shots with just focusing on the characters which was nice to see. Overall though an adaptation that does the source material justice, still conveying the overall question that Solanin focuses on "Are you happy? Is this all you want?", life will continue on and you either un along with it or let it drag you along. I sincerely hope to see more of Asano's shorter works getting the same amount of love.

An OK movie that could have easily been better.

Solanin is a 2010 Japanese movie that's a standard "young adults growing up while in a music band" tale. it wasn't terrible, but it could and should have been a lot better. It's brought down by two main problems. First, this movie is too long, and could have definitely used a second pass through the edit room because it tends to drag and become dull in several scenes. The second problem is the primary issue, and it almost kills the movie altogether, and I'll get to that problem in a moment.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

This movie basically revolves around two main characters; a wannabe musician and his live in girlfriend. The rest of the supporting cast is rounded out by their friends, band mates, and a few other characters. The entire supporting cast is fairly decent and they all do a capable enough job here. The lead actress, and primary star of the film, is very good in her role as the supportive and dependable girlfriend; she's an attractive and talented actress, and her character here is likable, cute, and charming throughout.

The lead actor's character however, is about as enjoyable as eating dirt, and this is what ruins this film. Here's a description of his character; he's a, boring, selfish, childish, lazy, inept, aimless, indecisive, insensitive, unreliable, mooch. He's also the lead singer, guitarist, & song writer for the band; unfortunately, he doesn't sing or play the guitar well at any point during the entire film, and he never sticks to the lyrics he wrote or music he composed either. Does that about sum him up for you?...if you think I'm exaggerating, watch the movie and tell me otherwise!

There is literally nothing to like about the lead character of this movie at all. If this character were a real life person, he would not have any friends, his band mates would have kicked him out of the band years ago when they realized how talentless he was, and he probably wouldn't have any girlfriends that would have stuck by him for any length of time.

Despite the total disdain the entire supporting cast of characters "should" have for the lead character, they all somehow think he's this good guy and they all seem somewhat dependent upon him for their happiness and sense of direction in life to varying degrees. These characters are all fairly directionless in life as well, but they all look like Steve Jobs compared to the lead character. I had so much contempt for this lead character that I was openly rooting for him to get hit by a bus or something halfway through the movie, so we could start focusing on the far more interesting and likable members of the cast (which is everyone else in the entire movie). Then, a miracle happens; the main character (SPOILERS) actually does get hit by a bus or car or something and dies. I guess he committed suicide, but you can't tell if that was really his intention because he can't ever make up his mind on whether he wants to commit to doing something or not.

At this point, the movie chooses to follow the cliché ridden method of having everyone come to terms with the loss of their friend by working towards playing his music on stage. It's blatantly obvious that this is the perfect impetus everyone needs in order to move forward with their lives; however, they could have all just easily mourned his death in their own individual ways, and then just moved on in life without all this nonsense. But, this is "band movie" after all, so, we can't have that can we?

All in all, there is decent enough amount of stuff to like in this movie to some extent, but I can't give it a definitively positive recommendation because of the unjustly deserved weight this movie places on the main actor's character; simply put; he's not nearly amiable enough for the viewer to truly connect with why the people he left behind felt he was so emotionally meaningful to their lives. This movie would have benefited greatly by making this character either MUCH less of a douche, or killing him off MUCH earlier in the film before the viewer got to the point of outright hating him and questioning why the rest of the cast of characters didn't hate him also.

6 out of 10 stars!