JAPANESE FILM FESTIVAL: Although The Town’s Children begins as yet another reworking of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise/Sunset films, Tsuyoshi Inoue’s two-hander is far more ambitious and its impact more profound.
Oomura Mika (Eriko Sato) returns to her hometown of Kobe to share in the 15th anniversary events commemorating the victims of the Great Hanshin Earthquake. She strikes up a spontaneous but awkward alliance with Nakata Yuuji (Mirai Moriyama), a sullen architect whom she meets at Sannomiya Train Station. He has only suppressed, bitter feelings of that terrible day and determinedly, has distanced himself from the town; she is open about her losses but counters the sadness with an innocent flirtatiousness.
Their bipedal journey through the streets of Kobe at night jolts memories. It’s a round trip – he decides to accompany her to her grandmother’s house then back to the city centre for the dawn service – and their recollections bond them as both friends and survivors. Despite her beauty and his hipster coolness, any notion of romance quickly dissipates in Inoue’s film; like Kobe itself, these are people that are still rebuilding, their individual foundations not quite solid enough yet to support the burden of another’s pains.
Skilfully adapted from Japanese broadcaster NHK’s popular 2010 small-screen version, The Town’s Children is bare-bones filmmaking, shot handheld on hi-res digital utilising natural light. The production’s here-and-now vibe is heightened by scenes quite obviously staged amidst unsuspecting crowds; train stations and crowded pedestrian intersections provide authenticity, but the sight of passers-by stopping to stare at the camera is distracting.
As the streets become more deserted and the leads meander through the rebuilt laneways and suburban parklands of the dark city, the dialogue and performances become potently raw. Moriyama is a Kobe native who was 11-years-old when the quake hit; press notes indicate that both actors experienced the impact of the quake. Each imbues their roles with the pained realities of their own existences and the film is richer for it.
False notes jar when they emerge (a noodle bar dinner scene overextends its drama, for example), but the soulful direction (accompanied by Aya Watanabe’s script and the ambient atmospheric score from composer Yoshihide Otomo) ensures that the deeper the film takes its audience, the more resonant its observations and emotions.
For survivors of the Kobe disaster (and, indeed, anyone who has experienced tragedy on such a grand scale), The Town’s Children will be a very raw, real experience. Though the narrative is about two people, its psychology speaks to an entire generation scarred forever by the events of January 17, 1995. It looks and sometimes feels like a very small film (no doubt due to its TV origins), but The Town’s Children carries with it a universal importance.
