With all the brutality in the world - and in many movie theaters as well - Hirokazu Koreeda's films bring relief and pleasure. The Japanese director focuses on families and children, but his work is free of cutesiness, overt sentimentality, never taking the easy way to the victory of good over evil or cheap happy ending.
His latest is "Our Little Sister" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3756788/) getting its US release on July 8, 2016, and to be seen in the San Francisco Bay Area beginning July 15. It is a heartwarming, but eminently realistic story of three young-adult sisters living together in a seaside town south of Tokyo. The "little sister" of the title is a 13-year-old half sister they adopt meeting her for the first time at the funeral of their long-estranged father.
Kore-eda reveals family memories, secrets, connections, conflicts - maintaining constant interest in the story, but keeping clear of soap-opera characteristics, and gradually increasing sympathy for the film's characters, certainly for the four young women, but also the rest of the large cast, even the easy-to-dislike absent (and quirky) mother, appearing near the end of the film and becoming a key player in a central conflict.
"Our Little Sister" is just as gripping and memorable as Kore-eda's best: "Nobody Knows," "Still Walking," "Like Father, Like Son," and "I Wish" - all humanistic, character-oriented films that integrate entertainment, wisdom, and a positive philosophy... all low-key and subtle. Kore-eda is the Chekhov of cinema - without Russian sadness and pessimism.
"Our Little Sistem" is based on Akimi Yoshida's "Umimachi Diary." Both the manga and the film emphasize the physical and social environment, even while focusing on the four women and their relationships within and without the family.
Sachi (Ayase Haruka), Yoshino (Masami Nagasawa) and Chika (Kaho) are the three sisters, three established, skillful actresses, the two older ones elegant and attractive; Kaho is quirky, but just as good- natured as the others. Hiroshi is a relative newcomer, giving an eminently believable performance as the orphan teenager, even though the actress was about 22 when the film was made.
Whimsical, moving acts of goodness are set in an environment of reality, including conflict, illness, even death, and in the end, there is a typical Kore-eda mild catharsis, nothing forced or dictated, just allowing the audience to share in "pretty good lives."
His latest is "Our Little Sister" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3756788/) getting its US release on July 8, 2016, and to be seen in the San Francisco Bay Area beginning July 15. It is a heartwarming, but eminently realistic story of three young-adult sisters living together in a seaside town south of Tokyo. The "little sister" of the title is a 13-year-old half sister they adopt meeting her for the first time at the funeral of their long-estranged father.
Kore-eda reveals family memories, secrets, connections, conflicts - maintaining constant interest in the story, but keeping clear of soap-opera characteristics, and gradually increasing sympathy for the film's characters, certainly for the four young women, but also the rest of the large cast, even the easy-to-dislike absent (and quirky) mother, appearing near the end of the film and becoming a key player in a central conflict.
"Our Little Sister" is just as gripping and memorable as Kore-eda's best: "Nobody Knows," "Still Walking," "Like Father, Like Son," and "I Wish" - all humanistic, character-oriented films that integrate entertainment, wisdom, and a positive philosophy... all low-key and subtle. Kore-eda is the Chekhov of cinema - without Russian sadness and pessimism.
"Our Little Sistem" is based on Akimi Yoshida's "Umimachi Diary." Both the manga and the film emphasize the physical and social environment, even while focusing on the four women and their relationships within and without the family.
Sachi (Ayase Haruka), Yoshino (Masami Nagasawa) and Chika (Kaho) are the three sisters, three established, skillful actresses, the two older ones elegant and attractive; Kaho is quirky, but just as good- natured as the others. Hiroshi is a relative newcomer, giving an eminently believable performance as the orphan teenager, even though the actress was about 22 when the film was made.
Whimsical, moving acts of goodness are set in an environment of reality, including conflict, illness, even death, and in the end, there is a typical Kore-eda mild catharsis, nothing forced or dictated, just allowing the audience to share in "pretty good lives."