Nobody Knows (2004)
Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda
In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
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What critics compared Nobody Knows to
Nobody Knows instantly takes its place at the top of the heap of “children in peril” movies, right alongside The Night of the Hunter , Lord of the Flies , and The 400 Blows .
It's surprising, since Kore-eda has in the past crafted some of the most poignant and delicate of Japanese films, including "Maborosi" and "Nobody Knows."
The film also shows the director's fascination with the family unit and preoccupation with children on their own -- in "Nobody Knows" (2004), he told the fact-based story of an abandoned quartet of siblings surviving on their own in Tokyo.
Previously Kore-Eda has made movies about rived families that have centered on children, such as “Nobody Knows,” in which a mother abandons her kids, and “I Wish,” about parental divorce.
Kore-eda portrayed family themes in his earlier “I Wish” (2011), where two young brothers separated by divorce seek to unite, and “Nobody Knows” (2004), a drama based on a news story about four kids living with no parents around.
His most memorable dramas always seem to be built around families: Maborosi (a wife deals with her husband's suicide); After Life (departed souls remember their loved ones); I Wish (a pair of brothers are separated but try to reconnect); Still Walking (a poignant visit to grandparents in the countryside); and the heartbreaking Nobody Knows, in which four young Tokyo kids are abandoned by their mother.
Lyrical, lovely, the picture is as stunning a document of youth as Isao Takahata's anime war idyll Grave of the Fireflies and successful in many of the same ways.
Yet none of this is played for sentiment, unlike similar scenes in Isao Takahata�s Grave of the Fireflies (1988) and Hiroshi Shimizu�s Children of the Beehive (1948).
When the Yakuza Bangun has peacefully coexisted with take out long time hit man Prakoso (Yayan Ruhian, "The Raid's" Mad Dog), Uco's dead set on revenge, but Bangun will not act against boss Goto (Ken'ichi Endô, "Nobody Knows") leaving Uco ripe for the picking by Strangelovian crime boss Bejo (Alex Abbad, "Merantau") with their shared hatred of the Japanese.
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This one feels like a cousin of what I consider his best film, the heartbreaking “Nobody Knows,” another film that examined people often dismissed or outright ignored by society.
I Wish (Magnolia Pictures): Hirokazu Kore-eda (Nobody Knows) has crafted a lovely, authentic exploration of family bonds tested by separation.