MEMORIES OF MATSUKO

Japan, 2007, 120 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Tetsuya Nakashima

It is difficult to categorise this film. Is it optimistic pessimism or pessimistic optimism? Its ambivalence is certainly Japanese: some hope in life but a mortal fatalism. That means that this story of a woman from young girl looked down on by her father in favour of her sick sister (except when she pulls a funny face, which she does quite often) who becomes a teacher but loses her job when she tries to save a student accused of stealing to a collapsing life with men, pimps and sex, who goes to jail for murder, who lives a masochistic life with the student grown to an adult in the Yakuza to a life of neglect shows a great deal of what is wrong in Japanese society. But, it is also an affirmer of life, especially with her slothful nephew who has to clean up her room after he murder. And then, at the end, there is a long resume of her whole life and all those who influenced it and a vision of a stairway to heaven.

It’s not as if there is not enough plot! And then there is the style.

Director Tetsuya Nakashima has been developing a particular style, with Kamikaze Girls, this film and his 2008 film which indicates more of the same, Paco and his Magical Picture Book, a blend of realism with brightly colourful surrealism looking to the Hollywood tradition of melodramas like those of Douglas Sirk (Magnificent Obsession, Imitation of Life) and the homages to him by directors like Tod Haynes (Far From Heaven). They also rely on an extensive soundtrack of songs and themes from the movies. This means that his films are geared to film buffs, maybe more to them than to the wider audience. That said, they have a certain fascination and unpredictability as we suspend disbelief.

Mika Nakatani who plays Matsuko won a number of awards in Asian festivals and Japanese awards for her performance.

1.The impact of the film: melodrama, visual style, musical style?

2.The director and his work, use of colour, realism and surrealism? Fantasy and imagination? The music, songs?

3.The structure: the boy, lazy, giving up on his work, questions about the meaning of life, his girlfriend and her criticism? The story of the young girl, her pulling the face, her story, murdered? The father and his giving the son the commission to find out about his aunt? The boy going to the room, learning about her life, going to the aunt’s room? The photo? The rubbish? The stories, the neighbour and his Mohawk, telling stories, the policeman and his stories, the effect? Learning more about his aunt? The father and the memories of meeting his aunt? The thief? The porn star? All filling in the story?

4.Matsuko and her relationship with her father, her younger sister, her illness, her father favouring the younger sister, her performance, pulling the face, her father laughing? Her anger, leaving home? Teaching? With the choir, on the boat, ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus’? The pleasant teacher and his friendship? At school, the boy who was the thief, her confronting him, taking the money, admitting to the theft, self-accusation, his reaction, denial, her being condemned? Her being expelled from the school?

5.Her life, the men, the massage, the pimps? Her desperation and her killing the man?

6.In jail, the songs, the women, her friendship with the woman who was to become the porn star?

7.Her nephew, his DVDs, the star, the encounter, talking with him, telling her story?

8.Matsuko getting out of jail, her relationship with the thief, coming across him again, the masochism? His brutality? Love, prepared to live this kind of hell? The passing of the years? The actress and her help?

9.The thief, his life, the Yakuza, brutality, his love, going to jail, her waiting for him, his talking to the nephew, his being under suspicion for Matsuko’s murder?

10.Matsuko and her age, going to fat, overeating, watching the career of her nephew on television, writing letters to him, her admiration, hope, his not replying, her despondency?

11.The actress, her life, her films, the offer to Matsuko for a job, leaving her card, Matsuko in the park, losing the card, going home, collapsing, the return, finding the card, her being bashed? The callous schoolchildren?

12.The pathos of her death, alone, after such a life? The brutality of children?

13.The resume of her life, the glimpses of all the people, her sister at the top of the stairway, her ascending the stairway to Heaven, being with her sister forever?

14.The optimism of the film? The pessimism of the film? The comment on the human condition, evil, sadness, despair? Possibilities of hope?