Nobody To Watch Over Me (Ryoichi Kimizuka, 2009): Japan

Reviewed by Darryl Walden. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2009.

In Nobody To Watch Over Me , Director/Writer Ryoichi Kimizuka gives us a rare glimpse into the cultural phenomena of honor that remains deeply embedded in the contemporary Japanese pathos.  If a minor commits a heinous crime, the minor’s family must bear a scathing social wrath that never abates which is precisely the case in this film.

Two grade school girls are brutally stabbed to death.  An eighteen year old high school student is arrested as a suspect.  The case is sensationalized by the media.  The press and outraged public converge on the home of the accused.  The camera engages in quick, tight hand held shots of the abounding pandemonium, with emphasis on the fifteen year old middle school sister of the accused, Saori Funamura (Mirai Shida) who is escorted from school to the family home by detective Takumi Katsuura (Koichi Sato).

Police officials, attorneys, and other bureaucrats concertedly act to have the Funamura parents divorce and remarry under different names.  This scenario includes a name change for a reluctant Saori.  Meanwhile, as the Japanese paparazzi intensifies, Katsuura is permanently assigned to protect Saori. The assignment intrudes upon a pre-arranged family outing which Katsuura counted on in an effort to save his disintegrating marriage that produced a girl the same age as Saori.

Following the suicide of Saori’s mother, Katsuura realizes that Saori  cannot stay in Tokyo and takes her to the seaside retreat intended for his family outing.  There, the quick cutting pace of the paparazzi chase is transformed into a revealing interplay of substantive depth that sanely navigates us to a just and more honorable resolution.

This is a compelling and well crafted film.  It was no accident the film was awarded best screenplay at the Montreal Film Festival.  And while good casting contributed to a high level of acting, it is Mirai Shida that gives an utterly magnificent performance which makes Koichi Sato’s that much more commanding.