Certificate: 12A
Running Time: 123 mins
UK Distributor: BFI
UK Release Date: 15 September 2023
WHO’S IN LOVE LIFE?
Fumino Kimura, Kento Nagayama, Atom Sunada, Tetta Shimada, Hirona Yamazaki, Misuzu Kanno, Tomorowo Taguchi, Tetsuta Shimada, Mito Natsume
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Kôji Fukada (director, writer, editor), Yasuhiko Hattori and Masa Sawada (producers), Olivier Goinard (composer), Hideo Yamamoto (cinematographer), Sylvie Lager (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
After a devastating tragedy, a mother (Kimura) is reunited with her son’s biological father (Sunada)…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON LOVE LIFE?
You’ve got to admire a good ironic title, and Love Life – the title of Japanese filmmaker Kôji Fukada’s drama that otherwise leaves you remorseful of both love and life – is quite a doozy. However, the multi-layered title is only one of Fukada’s sly little tricks to keep his quietly upsetting family melodrama firmly on the viewer’s mind, even if it occasionally struggles to completely hold your attention.
The film focuses on Taeko (Fumino Kimura), a young mother who lives a perfectly happy life in a sunny city apartment with her new husband Jiro (Kento Nagayama), and her six-year-old son Keita (Tetta Shimada) from a previous marriage. When we first meet this family, they’re going about their day as they prepare for a surprise birthday party for Jiro’s father Makoto (Tomorowo Taguchi), who doesn’t exactly approve of his son’s marriage to whom he deems a “castoff”, while further details regarding the connection between Jiro and an unfamiliar woman in the party committee named Yamazaki (Hirona Yamazaki) hint at a possible fracture in the seemingly blissful marriage. Nonetheless, they’re happy, and the party seems to go off without a hitch, even with the unexpected and rather funny presence of two nuns.
Unfortunately, and quite shockingly, tragedy soon strikes as young Keita slips and drowns in the bathtub (as captured through a haunting static long-take where the silence of the scene is utterly deafening), leaving Taeko and Jiro completely devastated. Things are made even more complicated when Keita’s biological father – a deaf, homeless and mentally ill Korean migrant named Park (Atom Sunada) – shows up the boy’s funeral to smack Taeko across the face, though that does not stop her from continuing to reconnect with him as she works through her grief, even if it means neglecting Jiro’s own emotional struggles.
While it is certainly another hard-hitting drama about the grieving process, and how emotionally taxing it can be for those having to live with the consequences, Love Life keeps its devastated wails down to a gentle hum rather than filling the void with pain-filled howls. Fukada shoots many of his scenes from a fair distance, with the characters’ emotions often lost amidst the numerous atmospheric shots, such as one extended take of two people simply walking from one apartment building to another, which is shot from a high-up balcony. Often, he and cinematographer Hideo Yamamoto find insignificant things to focus on rather than the person who is central to the scene, like the reflective sunlight from a decoration made out of an old CD, which zips all over the place like it’s a laser pointer for us, the gullible cat, to follow with our eyes. Yet, you still feel the raw emotion coming from these actors, as well as how Fukada and Yamamoto shoot them from pragmatic yet poetic angles, making the film quite soothing and even pleasant to watch (which is odd to say about a film that deals with the tragic death of a young boy).
Although, for all of its understated power, I wonder if perhaps Love Life is a bit too understated for its own good, to where I was starting to zone in and out of the movie. That isn’t to say that I was in any way disliking this movie, since I did ultimately find it to be a rather moving film with strong performances and a neat lean into visual storytelling. However, there were moments when Fukada’s light-to-the-touch methods were beginning to affect my concentration levels, particularly as it reaches a fittingly unshowy conclusion. The distanced shots, surely designed to represent a growing chasm of despair and isolation within its central characters, create a slight emotional disconnect for the viewer, who is left to piece together what the characters are supposed to be feeling or thinking rather than making those elements more prominent in order to establish them clearer. For me, this made it difficult to identify with certain characters despite their recognisable grief, or even understand why some of them make a number of surprising choices towards the end, since the film doesn’t always make itself clear as to what kind of emotion you should be feeling at specific points in the story.
When the film does know how it wants the viewer to react, it lands well enough to leave a notable impression. Like I said, there were more than a few moments in this film when I was genuinely moved and even a little disturbed by the events that occur throughout, and the actors all do very well to convey what their characters may be feeling, even when the filmmaking doesn’t allow them the luxury. Its understated and gentle nature might not be enough for some viewers wanting a slightly heavier portion of melodrama, but Love Life manages to be compelling and emotionally rich in its own way, even if you need to put all your energy into focusing as much as you can on the screen.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Love Life is an understated family drama that occasionally struggles to completely hold the attention of the viewer with its overly gentle and light nature, but enough of the emotional beats leave a strong impression to convey a quietly powerful story of grief.
