GOLDEN SLUMBER (GORUDEN SURAMBA)
Japan, 2010, 139 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Yoshihiro Nakamora.
Goruden Suramba is a difficult film for non-Japanese audiences. This is true both with the themes as well as the way of storytelling.
The film is set in a Japanese city and recreates the atmosphere of Japan very vividly. The focus is on a family, their presence at a department store, buying toys – with the father then going to meet a friend and explaining to him that there is to be an assassination and he will be blamed, like Lee Harvey Oswald with the Kennedy assassination. Immediately afterwards, the assassination attempt occurs, a helium balloon flying over the new president and an explosion killing him. The car with the informer also explodes.
The young man who is to be blamed goes on the run. During the film, there is a lot of television coverage seen which gives information as well as highlighting that the authorities have an alternate look-alike and have filmed him buying balloons and becoming involved in the activities to prove that he is the murderer. The police are ruthless in their pursuit.
The young student on the run is helped by a former girlfriend and a former student friend. Into this pursuit scenario are inserted quite a number of flashbacks showing their activities in the past, their friendships.
The young man also encounters a gangster from prison who gives him information about how to escape the authorities through the sewers, Les Miserables-like. The man in prison has a network and sets up explosions of fireworks at all the entries into the sewers and, at a particular moment, sets them off, confusing the police and enabling the young man to evade pursuit.
There is a confrontation with the police, more deaths – and a political cover-up. It is difficult to know at the end who has survived.
The film presents Japanese life quite vividly – but, for many audiences, the plot and the characters can be confusing – even though they know it is a political theme, with cover-up, scapegoating and corrupt police.
