{"id":28514,"date":"2013-12-25T02:12:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-25T09:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=28514"},"modified":"2014-01-12T04:24:29","modified_gmt":"2014-01-12T11:24:29","slug":"like-father-like-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=28514","title":{"rendered":"Like Father, Like Son"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryota, a Tokyo-based architect, has the air of self-confidence familiar to those who believe they understand precisely how the world works \u2013 and how to make it work in one\u2019s favour. He has a comfortable home; Midori, an affectionate (perhaps complaisant?) wife; a disciplined and well mannered (perhaps subdued?) six year old son. Routine, order, self-sacrifice for the greater good; because his engagement with life has served him well, he insists that the same values must be passed on Keita, his six-year-old. The child absorbs the lessons quickly. He applies himself to piano lessons with a diligence that outstrips his talent; during an interview for a place in a selective junior school, he tells the interview board (yes, these things do exist, and father Ryoto clearly approves) that the family went on a camping trip the previous summer. \u201cWhy did you say that?\u201d his father questions later, surprised by his son\u2019s subterfuge. \u201cI knew that\u2019s what they would want to hear,\u201d the son replies.<\/p>\n

\"like<\/a>
Like Father, Like Son<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But the world documented so faithfully in the first few minutes of Like Father, Like Son<\/em>, Hirokazu Kore-eda\u2019s new film, fragments very quickly. The new-school-to-be asks for a blood test (why? Good question), and it transpires that Keita is not Ryoto and Midori\u2019s biological child. There had been a mistake when Keita was born, and he had accidentally been switched with another child. The mistake is tracked back to the hospital where both children were born, and now immediate reparations need to be made. But how does one begin to negotiate such a complicated task: to welcome a strange child into one\u2019s home, and as one\u2019s own, on the one hand; and to revoke, unilaterally, the emotional connection to another?<\/p>\n

For good or for bad (it\u2019s probably a bit of both) Hirokazu Kore-eda has a reputation as an accomplished director of \u201cWorld\u201d cinema, an honorific that supposedly reflects his expertise in teasing out the subtle nuances of his ethnic milieu for the elucidation of the wider world. His films certainly translate well for international audiences, in part because they embrace recurring concern with universal issues of childhood and maturity, albeit set within a very specific Japanese context. Nobody Knows<\/em>, his elegiac and at times wilfully abstract 2004 film contemplates urban alienation from the perspective of three small children abandoned by their mother; I Wish<\/em>, from 2011, deals with the painful and all-too-real heartache of family breakdown, when two brothers are separated by their divorcing parents and taken to live in different cities.<\/p>\n

Like Father, Like Son<\/em>, winner of the Jury Prize at this year\u2019s Cannes Film Festival, meanders further along the same path: universal issues enclosed within a very specific and particular social environment. The factors that give meat to the story, we readily recognise: what does the word \u201cparent\u201d mean? How much does social class matter? What counts for more, Nature or Nurture? Or should it be neither? But the context shapes the response of the principals, creating a unique and engaging portrait of what would be for an international audience an unfamiliar, perhaps even a very alien world.<\/p>\n

On initial considerations, this tale of two values hews to a sternly bifurcated narrative. The second\u00a0 party to the mix-up are a family that represent everything Ryoto wold want his family not to be. Yudai, the second paterfamilias, is a cheerful underachiever who presides over a benignly chaotic household. He is inclined to feel his way slowly through the quagmire; Ryota, like the hospital responsible for the mix-up, favours an immediate resolution. \u201cIt has to be done quickly,\u201d he argues, \u201cIt\u201d being the switch that will return the boys to their biological parents. Midori objects: \u201cThey are not pets, and you wouldn\u2019t do that to a pet anyway.\u201d But Ryoto\u2019s motivation comes from a deeper source than merely restoring order: \u201cIs it possible to love a child without your blood?\u201d he muses.<\/p>\n

The distinctions between the two families thrown together unfold somewhat predictably. Ryoto lives in an elegant high-rise that looks down on the city; Yudai, on the ground,\u00a0 in an untidy house in a modest neighbourhood. Ryoto and family are measured, calculating; Yudai and Co. impulsive and rowdy. Neither of the boys are unhappy in their respective milieus, but the upheaval of exchange has already been telegrammed a long way ahead. In one respect, the questions that the audience might pose seem to be answered very early on. None of this will end well.<\/p>\n

\"Like<\/a>
Like Father, Like Son<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But the strength of Like Father, Like Son<\/em> lies not principally in the storytelling \u2013 which, for all its predictability, is competently done \u2013 but in the individual characterisation, especially how Kore-eda \u2013 who also wrote the screenplay \u2013 humanises his cast, avoiding the didactic temptation of turning the film into a zero-sum clash of class and values. Kore-eda pulls from his actors a remarkable, yet thoroughly convincing air of restraint, all the more surprising given the emotive charge of the subject matter. Ryusei and Keita, the two six year olds, inject the right balance of innocence and vulnerability needed to evoke the dilemma thoughtfully. But essentially Like Father, Like Son<\/em> works because the film nudges us into feeling for Ryoto, and the lonely journey he undertakes to engage with his rigid presumptions about the way his world should work. It doesn\u2019t force us to take sides; it merely reminds us that life is more complicated than we consciously allow.<\/p>\n

Like Father, Like Son<\/em> (2013)
\nWritten and Directed by Hirokazi Kore-eda
\nStarring Masaharu Fukuyama, Machiko Ono, Yoko Maki
\n120 mins, Japanese w. English and Hebrew subtitles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ryota, a Tokyo-based architect, has the air of self-confidence familiar to those who believe they understand precisely how the world works \u2013 and how to make it work in one\u2019s favour. He has a comfortable home; Midori, an affectionate (perhaps complaisant?) wife; a disciplined and well mannered (perhaps subdued?) six year old son. Routine, order, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}