Number 6 on my list of favorite Japanese films of 2007 is Strawberry Shortcakes, a film that has received lots of praise, for example on Midnight Eye, and that certainly deserves all the compliments. It is an exercise in subdued realism - almost like a documentary - but with many marvelous touches that show it has been carefully scripted and composed. Strawberry Shortcakes takes a poignant look at loneliness in the socially fragmented big city, through the prism of the lives of four young women. But it is not at all a "woman's film", as loneliness is an illness that attacks us all. The story is based on a popular manga by Nananan Kiriko, who writes for a public of adult females.
The director, indie Yazaki Hitoshi, broke through in 1992 with a lyrical film about incest, but has been mostly silent since then. Strawberry Shortcakes is a great comeback with which Yazaki has won much acclaim.
What is it about?
The film paints a portrait of four different, self-sufficient women in contemporary Tokyo. They are followed two by two and their lives run parallel through the whole film, with subtle interactions.
Cheerful Satoko (Ikewaki Chizuru) has just been dumped by her rocker boyfriend. She works as a receptionist for a "deriheru" call girl service called "Heaven's Gate" ("deriheru" or "delivery health" is at first sight a rather strange expression for a call girl service, but the word "health" is used because in Japan regular sex is considered "healthy" for men, and "delivery" because you can get it in your hotel or office just as easy as ordering a pizza). Satoko more or less becomes friends with Akiyo, one of the callgirls, and the only problem at work is that she has to dodge the unwanted attentions of her boss. Satoko has found a small black stone that fell from the sky and that she therefore has christened "god." She mumbles prayers to the stone to let her find someone who will love her. She likes to sit on the balcony of her tiny apartment and drink beer and in general seems at peace with life.
The classy Akiyo (Nakamura Yuko) is one of the young women working at “Heaven’s Gate.” She is so death-obsessed that she even sleeps in a coffin - it is fun to see the smoke of her morning cigarette rise up from the window in the lid. She diligently saves the money she earns with her often degrading work in order to buy a condo situated on the 5th floor or higher - so she can jump out and kill herself efficiently when she gets old and senile and can no longer manage on her own. Her only consolation are the comradely drinking sessions with her former classmate Kikuchi (Ando Masanobu) whom she secretly loves, a feeling that Kikuchi can not return.
The reclusive Toko (Iwase Toko aka manga author Nananan Kiriko herself) is a book illustrator who works obsessively to forget the recent seperation from her husband (who is quickly remarrying, to add insult to the pain). Toku represses past memories and suffers from severe bulimia - so realistically acted by Iwase that it is painful to watch. Toko has been asked by a publisher to make a drawing of the face of god and struggles with that difficult task, working day and night.
The cutesy Chihiro (Nakagoshi Noriko) is Toko's roommate. She is an office worker (OL) who loves shopping, fashion and makeup and dreams about the ideal boyfriend who will fulfill all her wishes - for her, such a boyfriend is "god." Unfortunately, she is stuck in a one-sided relationship with an egoistic co-worker (Kase Ryo), who is not willing to rise above the level of casual sex and let her start living with him.
All these four women struggle with their loneliness and try to find a patch of warmth in the cold concrete of the vast city. The film is very authentic in its portrayal of these largely "normal" young women and presents their sometimes melancholy situation without getting sweet or melodramatic - on the contrary, all scenes are infused with a very fine sense of humor.
What do I like about it?
- The true depiction of the small incidents of daily life
True realism is in the fine details, for example in the way these young women sometimes speak softly to themselves, as you so often hear Japanese do nowadays (I never noticed this in the past, say 25 years ago).
It is also in how their environment perfectly defines these women - Toko with her own pictures proudly on the walls, while as Mark Schilling notes, "hiding her feelings," Chihiro with her heart-shaped clock (that breaks down!), the matter-of-fact Satoko with her old scooter, old helmet and old apartment and Akiyo on high heels when she goes to work, but in jeans, T-shirt and big, black-framed spectacles when she meets her former classmate Kikuchi.
And realism is also in the sharp psychological insights, as when Chihiro desperately clings to her dream of marriage, folding her boyfriends clothes, bringing groceries to cook for him, although he only wants her to get lost quickly after finishing sex; and the scenarios through which she compulsively goes before she can accept that he does not love her and that she had better move on.
Although the one group of two women never meets the other group (at least not that we see, although there is a strong hint they will meet at the end), there are still various links, such as Toko's lost painting that has been found by the Chinese owner of the ramen-shop where Satoko works after she quits the "delivery health." And more than that, there is the strong thematic link of all four women trying to find their own "god," not in any religious sense, but in the form of "hope" that allows them to go on living.
- The subtle and self-depreciating humor
This film is a savorous mixture of various delicious elements: it is lighthearted, subtle, humorous, a little sad, and sometimes a little crazy. Blissfully absent are all melodrama, romance, sentimentality and the sweetness that usually would cloy a story like this. This is no feel good film, but an indie film with the idiosyncracy hidden just below the surface. On top of that, Yazaki demonstrates much psychological insight and craftsmanship.
An instant of subtle humor is for example the fact that the little black stone to which Satoko says her daily prayers, does not listen to her wishes for a boyfriend, but seems to grant another, more terrible wish - to kill the owner of the "delivery health" who made unwelcome avances...
- A statement about loneliness in the modern city
On the one hand, Strawberry Shortcakes makes a realistic statement about modern life and urban loneliness. When Satoko tries to buy her favorite brand of cigarettes, Hope, from a vending machine and notes it is sold out, she reacts: "There is no hope" (using the Japanese word kibo instead of the brandname of her cigarettes). But on the other hand, when the film ends, all women, in their own way, have come to terms with their lives and found a new kind of hope. Retribution showed how our lack of care for others shakes the very fundaments of our world; in Strawberry Shortcakes people reach out from their loneliness and start caring for each other - the film ends on a very positive tone.
We see all women grow during the film, until - in the words of Mark Schilling again - they "find the courage to live in their own skin without the usual neurotic or religious crutches, but with a like-minded soul or two."
Links
Official website.
Review on Midnight Eye by Paul Spicer.
Review in the Japan Times by Mark Schilling.
This is one of those rare DVDs published in Japan that comes with English subtitles (very finely done by Jason Gray). It is to be hoped that Japanese studios will be increasingly willing to make this investment in order to be succesful internationally.
Have you seen Strawberry Shortcakes? What did you think about it?
