Nobody Knows
MILL Valley Film Festival.
Oct 16. 615 pm. Raphael 2.
I saw this with M and C. We drove up to San Raphael early to get dinner. San Raphael is nice, touristy, and looks like a New England town.
The thing that is remarkable about Kore-eda's movie is how real it feels. We often equate documentary style with realism, but Kore-eda has evolved his work into a pure visual experience that wires itself directly into your head. Because of his visual craft, I had surrendered my disbelief that when I finally saw an actor I recognized, I found it jarring. What is that actor doing here, in this real story?
This movie lingered with me, and a day or two later I was still sorting out the images, realised that I missed some foreshadowings, and some symbols.
Nobody Knows is told so dispassionately, so quietly, that it leaves an emotional void that you want to fill. And so you do, in a sprawling emotional journey with a young boy taking care of his 3 younger siblings, all alone.
Update: in May 2005, I bought the DVD. It includes a long essay by the director in Japanese, which now I'll have to read sometime.