{"id":14762,"date":"2011-03-13T22:48:14","date_gmt":"2011-03-14T06:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=14762"},"modified":"2011-03-13T22:48:14","modified_gmt":"2011-03-14T06:48:14","slug":"1778-stories-of-me-and-my-wife-mamoru-hoshi-2011-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=14762","title":{"rendered":"1778 Stories of Me and My Wife (Mamoru Hoshi, 2011): Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2011.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Based on the true story of Taku Mayumura, 1778 Stories of Me and My Wife<\/a><\/em> is a tale both delicate and powerful, whimsical and emotionally wrenching, a delicious confection wrapped around an inevitable bitter pill. It’s also a bloated mess that needs an unflinching editor to carve it into shape. I love the film, despite its flaws, but I know that, with a little less, it could be so much more.<\/p>\n

Saku (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi) is a passionate science fiction writer, who has found a little success crafting short stories for a magazine. He is blessed with a wife, Setsuko (Yuko Takeuchi), who not only supports him in his calling, but who shares his child-like enthusiasm for the weird and the wonderful.\u00a0 Beautiful 1950s kitsch robots fill their lives, from the tiny models which command every inch of his study, through the pages he writes, and beyond into his subconscious, his dreams. \u00a0\u00a0Saku and Setsuko live like children, skimming the surface of reality, but never becoming submerged in it.\u00a0 That makes it all the more heartbreaking when their fantasy turns nightmare.\u00a0 Instead of a hoped-for pregnancy, Setsuko is condemned by a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Spurred on by a doctor who extols the benefits of laughter as medicine, Saku promises himself that he will write a funny story a day – not for publication, but as a sign of love, and symbol of life, for his wife.<\/p>\n

Saku is as innocent a character as I can remember. As the film plays out from his perspective, it’s almost impossible not to be caught up in his world, and his refusal to accept the harsh reality that stalks the story. \u00a0In some of the film’s best moments, we literally see his imagination take flight. Tower blocks morph into giant mechanical monsters in his mind\u2019s eye, and the toys in a shop window march back and forth for his pleasure. We even join him in a struggle to save old robots from terrible new ones on some far flung moon.\u00a0 That the director manages to make such whimsy feel completely appropriate in a film about their struggle with Setsuko\u2019s unjust impending mortality is quite astonishing to me. It never cheapens the proceedings, never feels out of place.<\/p>\n

In part, this is due to the performances of the two leads. As Saku, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi makes a wonderful Peter Pan figure, not fighting against the idea of growing up, but simply immune to its grip. Yuko Takeuchi, playing Setsuko, tempers her own flights of fancy with just enough of an edge of responsibility to ground their relationship and make their ability to function in the real world seem plausible. Had she fallen too close to Saku’s naivet\u00e9, the film would have been to fanciful to connect to its weightier elements. If she’d been too serious, then their relationship would have been unbelievable. Much of the film\u2019s strength lies in her quiet supporting performance. \u00a0\u00a0Another part can be credited to the film\u2019s look.\u00a0 The cinematography is crystal clear and the sets bereft of unnecessary clutter.\u00a0 When this is paired with the animated robots, thankfully more Robbie than Optimus Prime, the effect is quite simply beautiful.<\/p>\n

It is only when the \u20181778 stories\u2019 near the end of their inescapable countdown, that the film begins to fall apart. It is as though the film is as desperate to hold on to Setsuko as Saku himself. The final act, set around her hospital bed, drags interminably, with unnecessary repetition piled on top of unnecessary repetition. \u00a0I understand the need to make the final moments drag , to highlight the rapid flight of past days taken too much for granted, but the film stretches this to the point of absurdity. When the audience begins to wish for the end, the film is in danger of undoing all that it set out to achieve.<\/p>\n

The story goes that Michelangelo could look at a rough block of marble and see the beauty of the statue within, waiting to be revealed as the excess was trimmed away. That’s exactly how I feel about 1778 Stories of Me and My Wife.\u00a0\u00a0 At nearly two and a half hours, the film is overlong and baggy, its potential buried beneath an overlong third act. If it is not cut down before it is released from the festival circuit, I fear it is doomed to fail. But even if \u00a0you come across it uncut, I implore you to give the film a chance. Stick with it through the hard times and hold on to the best moments. They are what you’ll remember in the end.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden. \u00a0Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2011. Based on the true story of Taku Mayumura, 1778 Stories of Me and My Wife is a tale both delicate and powerful, whimsical and emotionally wrenching, a delicious confection wrapped around an inevitable bitter pill. It’s also a bloated mess that needs an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}