河畔的朔子

                                         SUMMER IN A SMALL TOWN RUSHES
The ghosts of Rohmer and Naruse haunt Au revoir l’été,Fukada Koji’s tale of a young girl coming of age in a seaside town.
                                                                                                             By Trevor Johnston
The export release title might conjure up a
Rohmeresque world of holiday-time ennui, but
the light, bright, summery images in Fukada
Koji’s third feature, Au revoir l’été, merely serve
to lure the viewer into a film with much to
say about the ills of Japanese society. Here the
small seaside town, where Nikaido Fumi’s
teenager Sakuko finds herself staying with her
spinster aunt, gradually reveals a window on
the country’s hidden class tensions, hypocritical
attitudes to sexual equality, and the failings
of democracy after the Fukushima nuclear
disaster. The approach is discursive rather than
hectoring, though it’s still relatively rare for
a contemporary Japanese film to manifest a
genuine sense of social engagement while still
delivering an attractive and engaging drama.
Fukada’s previous work, including 2010’s
social comedy Hospitalité, has been acclaimed
on the festival circuit, but this will be the first
chance for UK cinemagoers to experience
the work of a Japanese writer-director-editor
whose work runs stealthily against the
grain – not least for the fact that he honed his
craft in the theatre with Hirata Oriza’s famed
Seinendan company, responsible for a new
strain of naturalism on the Japanese stage.
Trevor Johnston: The original Japanese title,
Hotori no Sakuko, roughly translates as ‘Sakuko
on the margin’, yet presumably creating
her character was the key to the story?
Fukada Koji: Yes, I was actually inspired
by meeting the actress Nikaido Fumi, who
manages to combine a real youthfulness with a
professional maturity, having been in the business
for a number of years. So Sakuko is someone
between childhood and the adult world. She’s
failed her university entrance exam so has to take
a year out, so it’s an ambivalent, unbalanced time
in her life, which makes her the person to take
the audience on the journey into the labyrinth.
TJ: And what are the component
parts of this labyrinth?
FK: Well, for instance, there’s a sort of fake hotel.
It looks normal, but it’s actually operating as
a love hotel, where we see the local politician
and a suggestion of teenage prostitution. It’s
illegal, but it goes on, and for me that’s a way of
exploring women’s sexual roles. Contrast that
with Mikie, Sakuko’s aunt, someone who’s made
a very strong decision not to have children, which
really runs against the common perception in
Japan that women are there to have babies.
TJ: Sakuko also strikes up a friendship with a
refugee from Fukushima, which presumably
was a way of approaching this thorny subject?
FK: Absolutely. It would not have been possible
for me to make a film without tackling the
nuclear power issue in some way, but I didn’t
want to do it directly, because in Japan we’ve
become pretty much inured to images of the
suffering in Tohoku [the region surrounding
Fukushima]. What you have to realise is that
the nuclear power issue is actually fundamental
to the question of democracy in Japan. The
explosion and the aftermath are one thing, but
then we elected politicians who are continuing
the policy of nuclear power. There are antinuclear
demonstrations almost every day,
yet that doesn’t in any way affect the power
base of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
TJ: You can sense a sort of simmering
discontent as the story progresses, but
the film never becomes overtly angry.
FK: For me the cinema is really bound up with the
history of propaganda – not so much in subject
matter, but in the process, the notion of just how
easy it is for us to be made to change our minds,
to be manipulated. So when it comes to my own
films, I’m really very wary of creating emotional
propaganda. Instead I want to create a sort of
unresolved space, something that’s discursive, so
the audience has to fill in the gaps for themselves.
TJ: There’s a certain hint of Rohmer in the
subject matter, but do I also detect a Naruse
influence in the combination of everyday
drama and underlying social comment?
FK: You spotted it. When I was growing up, I
really watched a lot of pre-1960 films, and Naruse
was the one who made the strongest impression. I
see a strong kinship between Naruse and Rohmer
because there’s always a clear relationship
between the characters and the camera. They
create a very simple, almost a pure environment
for the story. And I’ve tried to capture something
of that by always shooting the action from the
front, by keeping a certain distance, and never
distorting the relationship between the characters
and the viewer by using low camera angles.
TJ: Yes, it’s certainly unfashionably
classical in that regard, so does that
explain your choice of Academy ratio?
FK: What I’m trying to do with film is shoot
human beings and show their relationships. 4:3 is
definitely the most suitable ratio for the human
face, though something that I learned from my
work in the theatre was that when we really look
at people we realise they never really say what
they’re actually thinking. I don’t know if that’s
typically Japanese, but it’s something Sakuko
discovers for herself in the course of the story.
i Au revoir l’été is released in UK cinemas
on 24 April and is reviewed on page 69
By Trevor Johnston
The export release title might conjure up a
Rohmeresque world of holiday-time ennui, but
the light, bright, summery images in Fukada
Koji’s third feature, Au revoir l’été, merely serve
to lure the viewer into a film with much to
say about the ills of Japanese society. Here the
small seaside town, where Nikaido Fumi’s
teenager Sakuko finds herself staying with her
spinster aunt, gradually reveals a window on
the country’s hidden class tensions, hypocritical
attitudes to sexual equality, and the failings
of democracy after the Fukushima nuclear
disaster. The approach is discursive rather than
hectoring, though it’s still relatively rare for
a contemporary Japanese film to manifest a
genuine sense of social engagement while still
delivering an attractive and engaging drama.
Fukada’s previous work, including 2010’s
social comedy Hospitalité, has been acclaimed
on the festival circuit, but this will be the first
chance for UK cinemagoers to experience
the work of a Japanese writer-director-editor
whose work runs stealthily against the
grain – not least for the fact that he honed his
craft in the theatre with Hirata Oriza’s famed
Seinendan company, responsible for a new
strain of naturalism on the Japanese stage.
Trevor Johnston: The original Japanese title,
Hotori no Sakuko, roughly translates as ‘Sakuko
on the margin’, yet presumably creating
her character was the key to the story?
Fukada Koji: Yes, I was actually inspired
by meeting the actress Nikaido Fumi, who
manages to combine a real youthfulness with a
professional maturity, having been in the business
for a number of years. So Sakuko is someone
between childhood and the adult world. She’s
failed her university entrance exam so has to take
a year out, so it’s an ambivalent, unbalanced time
in her life, which makes her the person to take
the audience on the journey into the labyrinth.
TJ: And what are the component
parts of this labyrinth?
FK: Well, for instance, there’s a sort of fake hotel.
It looks normal, but it’s actually operating as
a love hotel, where we see the local politician
and a suggestion of teenage prostitution. It’s
illegal, but it goes on, and for me that’s a way of
exploring women’s sexual roles. Contrast that
with Mikie, Sakuko’s aunt, someone who’s made
a very strong decision not to have children, which
really runs against the common perception in
Japan that women are there to have babies.
TJ: Sakuko also strikes up a friendship with a
refugee from Fukushima, which presumably
was a way of approaching this thorny subject?
FK: Absolutely. It would not have been possible
for me to make a film without tackling the
nuclear power issue in some way, but I didn’t
want to do it directly, because in Japan we’ve
become pretty much inured to images of the
suffering in Tohoku [the region surrounding
Fukushima]. What you have to realise is that
the nuclear power issue is actually fundamental
to the question of democracy in Japan. The
explosion and the aftermath are one thing, but
then we elected politicians who are continuing
the policy of nuclear power. There are antinuclear
demonstrations almost every day,
yet that doesn’t in any way affect the power
base of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
TJ: You can sense a sort of simmering
discontent as the story progresses, but
the film never becomes overtly angry.
FK: For me the cinema is really bound up with the
history of propaganda – not so much in subject
matter, but in the process, the notion of just how
easy it is for us to be made to change our minds,
to be manipulated. So when it comes to my own
films, I’m really very wary of creating emotional
propaganda. Instead I want to create a sort of
unresolved space, something that’s discursive, so
the audience has to fill in the gaps for themselves.
TJ: There’s a certain hint of Rohmer in the
subject matter, but do I also detect a Naruse
influence in the combination of everyday
drama and underlying social comment?
FK: You spotted it. When I was growing up, I
really watched a lot of pre-1960 films, and Naruse
was the one who made the strongest impression. I
see a strong kinship between Naruse and Rohmer
because there’s always a clear relationship
between the characters and the camera. They
create a very simple, almost a pure environment
for the story. And I’ve tried to capture something
of that by always shooting the action from the
front, by keeping a certain distance, and never
distorting the relationship between the characters
and the viewer by using low camera angles.
TJ: Yes, it’s certainly unfashionably
classical in that regard, so does that
explain your choice of Academy ratio?
FK: What I’m trying to do with film is shoot
human beings and show their relationships. 4:3 is
definitely the most suitable ratio for the human
face, though something that I learned from my
work in the theatre was that when we really look
at people we realise they never really say what
they’re actually thinking. I don’t know if that’s
typically Japanese, but it’s something Sakuko
discovers for herself in the course of the story.
i Au revoir l’été is released in UK cinemas
on 24 April and is reviewed on page 69
By Trevor Johnston
The export release title might conjure up a
Rohmeresque world of holiday-time ennui, but
the light, bright, summery images in Fukada
Koji’s third feature, Au revoir l’été, merely serve
to lure the viewer into a film with much to
say about the ills of Japanese society. Here the
small seaside town, where Nikaido Fumi’s
teenager Sakuko finds herself staying with her
spinster aunt, gradually reveals a window on
the country’s hidden class tensions, hypocritical
attitudes to sexual equality, and the failings
of democracy after the Fukushima nuclear
disaster. The approach is discursive rather than
hectoring, though it’s still relatively rare for
a contemporary Japanese film to manifest a
genuine sense of social engagement while still
delivering an attractive and engaging drama.
Fukada’s previous work, including 2010’s
social comedy Hospitalité, has been acclaimed
on the festival circuit, but this will be the first
chance for UK cinemagoers to experience
the work of a Japanese writer-director-editor
whose work runs stealthily against the
grain – not least for the fact that he honed his
craft in the theatre with Hirata Oriza’s famed
Seinendan company, responsible for a new
strain of naturalism on the Japanese stage.
Trevor Johnston: The original Japanese title,
Hotori no Sakuko, roughly translates as ‘Sakuko
on the margin’, yet presumably creating
her character was the key to the story?
Fukada Koji: Yes, I was actually inspired
by meeting the actress Nikaido Fumi, who
manages to combine a real youthfulness with a
professional maturity, having been in the business
for a number of years. So Sakuko is someone
between childhood and the adult world. She’s
failed her university entrance exam so has to take
a year out, so it’s an ambivalent, unbalanced time
in her life, which makes her the person to take
the audience on the journey into the labyrinth.
TJ: And what are the component
parts of this labyrinth?
FK: Well, for instance, there’s a sort of fake hotel.
It looks normal, but it’s actually operating as
a love hotel, where we see the local politician
and a suggestion of teenage prostitution. It’s
illegal, but it goes on, and for me that’s a way of
exploring women’s sexual roles. Contrast that
with Mikie, Sakuko’s aunt, someone who’s made
a very strong decision not to have children, which
really runs against the common perception in
Japan that women are there to have babies.
TJ: Sakuko also strikes up a friendship with a
refugee from Fukushima, which presumably
was a way of approaching this thorny subject?
FK: Absolutely. It would not have been possible
for me to make a film without tackling the
nuclear power issue in some way, but I didn’t
want to do it directly, because in Japan we’ve
become pretty much inured to images of the
suffering in Tohoku [the region surrounding
Fukushima]. What you have to realise is that
the nuclear power issue is actually fundamental
to the question of democracy in Japan. The
explosion and the aftermath are one thing, but
then we elected politicians who are continuing
the policy of nuclear power. There are antinuclear
demonstrations almost every day,
yet that doesn’t in any way affect the power
base of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
TJ: You can sense a sort of simmering
discontent as the story progresses, but
the film never becomes overtly angry.
FK: For me the cinema is really bound up with the
history of propaganda – not so much in subject
matter, but in the process, the notion of just how
easy it is for us to be made to change our minds,
to be manipulated. So when it comes to my own
films, I’m really very wary of creating emotional
propaganda. Instead I want to create a sort of
unresolved space, something that’s discursive, so
the audience has to fill in the gaps for themselves.
TJ: There’s a certain hint of Rohmer in the
subject matter, but do I also detect a Naruse
influence in the combination of everyday
drama and underlying social comment?
FK: You spotted it. When I was growing up, I
really watched a lot of pre-1960 films, and Naruse
was the one who made the strongest impression. I
see a strong kinship between Naruse and Rohmer
because there’s always a clear relationship
between the characters and the camera. They
create a very simple, almost a pure environment
for the story. And I’ve tried to capture something
of that by always shooting the action from the
front, by keeping a certain distance, and never
distorting the relationship between the characters
and the viewer by using low camera angles.
TJ: Yes, it’s certainly unfashionably
classical in that regard, so does that
explain your choice of Academy ratio?
FK: What I’m trying to do with film is shoot
human beings and show their relationships. 4:3 is
definitely the most suitable ratio for the human
face, though something that I learned from my
work in the theatre was that when we really look
at people we realise they never really say what
they’re actually thinking. I don’t know if that’s
typically Japanese, but it’s something Sakuko
discovers for herself in the course of the story.
懒，我就不重新排版了。。。。。

一开头似风铃的配曲代入安逸的小镇风景，温暖柔和的夏风吹乱青春少女的发丝，如果你此时此刻也是在充满阳光的午后，时间庸长而无聊，那么细细品味这部电影是最适合不过的了。
青春少女的心纯洁而美丽，是成人世界的旁观者。电影的节奏不快，但是几个不经意的片段却灼显出现代人的欲望和错乱，导演用少男少女纯洁的感情去反衬成人世界不道德的感情。
男孩在跟塑子约会的时候接到女同学的电话，乱了心，塑子这个时候选择让位是内心美的真实体现，喜欢他，默默的陪伴。
人生岁月很长，贪图一时的享乐却导致生活中充满谎言和烦恼，慢慢走，像塑子一样追寻内心的感受，不为欲望所迷惑，让心灵以最原始最轻盈的姿态穿行在世间，才能享受更多的美，而这跟王阳明的我心光明又何其相似。

火车移动，横过房屋，横过丛木。昏睡中，「到了，朔子」。这是电影的开篇，就像所有的开始，就像人的成长，我们都是糊里糊涂来到世上，混混噩噩寻找方向。

朔子，18岁，高三毕业，没考上任何一间大学，对未来一无所知，没有想做的事。家人目见跟主流大众的路偏差了，会说上几句。这种关心在当事人听来就是烦心，逃避是必然的选择。朔子跟着海希江阿姨逃到临海乡下，弹琴丶海滩玩水丶听人闲聊丶踩单车，做甚麽都可以，除了读书温习。毕竟也读了至少十二年的课本，结果换来失败的下场丶空荡的人生。继续读下去有甚麽意义？说来也奇怪，成绩差的人不喜欢读书，成绩好的人也不喜欢读书，如朔子口中那个逃课的同学。人，要做甚麽好？

水帆阿姨，做陶艺的，喜欢旅游。

海希江阿姨，日本人，研究外国的历史丶文化。

邻居敏江，没有职业，闲时旅游丶闲时画画丶闲时找友人谈天说地。

辰子，大学生，在餐厅做兼职，喜欢文学，曾经自费出诗集。

兔吉先生，情趣酒店经理，非法经营，努力赚钱供女儿上大学。

孝史，年纪跟朔子相若，没有读书出来工作。

西田郁夫，大学老师，高尚职业，有妻儿，但跟海希江阿姨的关系暧昧，会挑逗自己的女学生。

人，生活，总需要做点事，像这样才有意义。但做的事未必叫自己喜欢，有时自己作贱，有时逼不得已。作贱还是逼不得已，离不开跟他者的互动。人，与人的相处，是生活的面相，可以产出自由快乐，可以产出难过悲伤。其中的运作，引起了朔子的兴趣。

海希江阿姨的生活，朔子不明白，包括她跟自己母亲的关系丶跟西田的关系和跟兔吉先生的关系。她跟朔子母亲没有血缘关系，但她们的名字叫法一样，同年级读过同一班，而阿姨比母亲漂亮，为朔子母亲带来过烦恼。西田有妻儿，为甚麽还跟他一起？她曾经跟兔吉先生相恋，为甚麽第一天介绍兔吉先生的时候只说他是水帆阿姨的前男朋友，没有说也是她的前男朋友？那次找花的那条分岔路，她跟兔吉先生的路明明较短，为甚麽却花更长的时间才到达？

为甚麽邻居敏江无所事事就周围跟人说三道四？为甚麽辰子不喜欢努力赚钱供自己读大学的父亲？为甚麽拥有高学历的西田那样厚颜无耻？为甚麽兔吉先生会容忍喜欢过的人做人情妇？

大人的事情好像都不可理喻。孝史都不明白兔吉叔叔为何纵容权贵，VIP跟初中生发生性关系也无动於衷，还一如既往为他播歌助威。孝史和朔子都离家出走，是对於成人世界的看不过眼吗？咖啡室的那个气球表演，为甚麽那个大人会流泪？

大人对於自己的事情，自己可能也不好说。孝史丶朔子离家出走的那天，海希江和兔吉独处的时间，像有很多话要说，最後却只有寥寥数句。人，越大，是否都越喜欢把事情深埋？然後给它一个「秘密」的名称。

通过观察人和人的相处，朔子对於自己的将来有了点眉目。或者每一个人每一天的生活都是一样的，像刨冰各种糖浆的味道，不论浇上草莓还是蜜糖，闭上眼吃味道都是一样。不同，只是大脑产生的错觉。

朔子是喜欢孝史的。当她见到他跟女同学约会，就到海边忘我地跑步；当听到他第二天又跟女同学约会，她就转身背向他点烟花。离家出走完回家，她给喜欢的人轻轻一吻。

人，是一种有趣的东西。河畔的朔子，涉水未深，带着有点清晰的头脑回去，不知会否从事研究“人”的工作。火车移动，书本合上。