I Love You (1999) User Reviews

Beautiful documentary view to life of deaf in Japan

[jaakkochan · 7/10 · 7 December 2002]

Deaf mother who starts to build a bridge between hearing and deaf people in Japan, having great effort. An understanding and loving husband who is a firemen but who starts feel that he is ignored by his wife's attempts. And a daughter who's being bullied at school because her mother is deaf.

The movie is documentary style, and you shouldn't expect more than that. There are no tricks in this movie, but yet it is fascinating in it's own way.

Actors and actresses feel very real and lively. Also some of the outdoor scenes from urban Japan are beautifully made. I gave this movie nine. I recommend.

Sweet But Cacophonous Deaf Film

[frankgaipa · 6/10 · 24 October 2002]

Not a film, so much as lesson. A putting-on-a-show deaf-mute tale, centered round a deaf mother with a hearing little girl and husband. Bizarrely for a movie about the deaf, its first half is marred by one of those sappy-pop-song-played-over-pretty-images interludes that punctuate lazily directed American films. And the big show, a stage production of Beauty and the Beast is completely spoken from offstage, as if the film's creators don't trust us to follow a truly mute production. Is the silent film era really that far gone? "I Love You" nods at universality by including a non-deaf mime in the play-within-the-film's team, but never completes the equation. When watching a bundle of clichés (both show film and deaf film), it's best to keep alert for anything that doesn't fit the mold. That pays off here, now and then. Touching, perhaps in some instances unique-to-the-deaf, moments do occur, mostly between the mother and daughter, between the mother and her deaf friends.

This is sticking my neck out where no one can knock me down, or at least not so I'd know, but if I belonged to this group, I think I'd rather see deaf roles in films that make as little concession as possible to deafness, even, things the correctness police would never allow, a deaf-mute villain, failure, maniac, coward, unmitigated victim, in a speaking world. Two recent films, that go not there but are excellent nonetheless, are Neil LaBute's "In the Company of Men" and Jacques Audiard's "Read My Lips." I heard the LaBute film's actress interviewed probably on NPR's "Fresh Air," so, maybe unfortunately, she was a speaker playing deaf, but her acting of the sounds a deaf woman makes vocalizing are dead on. Another touchpoint, a particularly harrowing one whichever side you find yourself taking, is the doc "Sound and Fury" directed by Josh Aronson, about a deaf couple who must decide whether to allow their young daughter cochlear implants that would allow her a life in which they fear they would share too little.

Great Movie

[Etoile · 9/10 · 6 April 2008]

This was a great movie, my first time seeing what it is like for deaf people in Japan. I never saw JSL before but I think I learned a few words from this movie! I go to Gallaudet University and I will have to ask around to see if there are any Japanese students there, because I would like to learn more JSL from them. This movie was very sweet with a happy ending! They seem to have used deaf actors and actresses but there are also some characters (Asako's husband, the neighbor girl) who are hearing but seem to be very good in JSL. There are some very tender moments but it turns out to be a very positive movie. I didn't know the ILY sign was used all over the world! I got this movie off eBay on DVD so you might be able to find it too...the English subtitles are pretty good so anybody can enjoy it. (If you are Japanese and deaf, you might be able to find a version with Japanese subtitles, because not all of it is signed, there are some parts that are spoken only.)