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MRockwell219
Reviews
Always san-chôme no yûhi (2005)
What this movie tells to Japan today
As a Japanese, I enjoyed this movie very much. I think this movie means so much to Japanese audience (I'm not saying that only Japanese can enjoy the movie). If I saw a movie about rebuilding a foreign country, I would not that get touched, because I don't know about the country very much.
But I know that people in that age did take the biggest part in rebuilding Japan, living in a very hard time. They were Japan's most energetic, hopeful and strong people in my opinion. Having experienced the war, they believed that they can get better and richer, if only they made great efforts. They believed in the future.
But how about the real today? Are we still able to keep the sunset that the Suzuki family saw? Do we smile innocently like them? I thought of the real world, and felt very sorry for the people in the movie.
I know that this movie does not portrait the "real" Japan. Many people aren't so innocent or good, and Japan became richer because they sold weapons to the US at the Korean War. This movie is, in a sense, fantasy. I regard this movie as a theme park; When you're in a theme park, you probably forget to criticize it and just get fooled by the "lies" the theme park shows on purpose, in order to enjoy. I first thought this movie was a tear-jerker, but at the next moment I thought it's too nonsense to say that it's just a tear-jerker, because this movie IS a tear-jerker on purpose. This movie is a emotion-stirrer for Japanese people who have forgotten to show emotions.
I got fooled by the cute lies of the movie, and I cried when Hiromi receives the invisible ring by Chagawa, when Roku finds that her mother loved her staring the letters she got, and when Junnosuke comes back to Chagawa.
I could hear "cry! cry!" from the screen which I usually hate. But this time, I was feeling so gentle and tender-hearted that I forget to criticize. Not only me but everyone in the theater felt the same thing. We felt like we were in the 1950s, and watching our neighbors. We laughed and cried so loud like in older ages (in Japan today, when you make a tiny single noise in the theater someone will stare at you angrily). No one scolded kids speaking or older people eating something, because I think we became gentle while watching people in old days. Indeed, I could feel gentler than usual even finished watching the movie. And at the same time, I felt very sad at that there is no such energy in Japan anymore.
But I just want to say thank you to the directors for making a movie that I can talk with grandfathers about their youth.