‘Moving‘ (1993 – original title is ‘Ohikkoshi‘) is one of those films whose viewing is more than a cinematic spectacle – it’s an experience. It’s the first film I’ve seen by the Japanese film director Shinji Sômai, who died prematurely in 2001, leaving behind a filmography of only 13 films, almost the same number as the French film director Jean-Pierre Melville, who also died around the same age. His films are little known outside of Japan. In the 1980s and 1990s when they were made, Japanese films were rarely distributed in the world except for Akiro Kurosawa’s and cartoons. His films, however, influenced the wave of very talented directors who today are sometimes better known and more successful in the world than in Japan. ‘Moving’ is a beautiful, sensible and slightly enigmatic film. I’m not sure that I understood all of its symbols and I would be happy to discuss it sometime with someone from Japan or well versed in Japanese culture and traditions.
The story features a family with only one child that is on the verge of separation. If you want, a kind of ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ in the Japanese version, only here the child is Renko, an 11-12-year-old girl. The scene that opens the film is the last dinner the family spends together. The tensions between the parents are visible and the little girl is trying to brave it and maybe she has not yet understood all the implications of her parents’ separation. The next day the father packs his things and moves, quite far away, but probably in the same city (Kyoto?). The mother works, in the evenings when she comes home she tries to rebuild the mother-daughter relationship based on a discipline embodied in a set of rules and a life schedule displayed in the house. The little girl misses her father and the family atmosphere. She also has problems at school, where the children notice the situation and make fun of her and another colleague who is in the same situation. Divorce is allowed in Japan, but it is socially frowned upon. As she becomes aware of the situation, sadness turns to rebellion, and the means of expression are typical of adolescence: naive or wonderful attempts to bring parents together, or acts of rebellion that can become destructive. Coming to age occurs in parallel with the desire to recover the lost security and stability.
Although the setting of the story is that of a large city in modern Japan with its houses and schools, there is an element of tradition and even magic that accompanies the story and which at one point becomes dominant. Fire marks several key moments – whether it’s a way to express the outburst of teenage rebellion, or it’s the centerpiece of a traditional celebration that ends with a spectacular burning of dragon-decorated ships on a lake. Towards the end of the film, Renko will go through a horror-tinged initiation and transformation experience that may be real, may be dreamlike, is certainly magical. Not everything is explained – neither the wandering in the bamboo jungle, nor the meeting with an old man who gives her some life advice that guides her to the initiation ceremony. Some of the meanings might be clearer to those connoisseurs of Japanese lore, but even for the uninitiated viewer the ending has exceptional visual and emotional power. Viewers in a hurry to leave the cinema hall and those who press the ‘off’ button at the beginning of the credits will miss a series of sequences that project Renko into the future, sequences accompanied by Gheorghe Zamfir’s flute music. It was a surprise for me, which proves that Shinji Sômai was a director who, in addition to the talents to create an emotional story, to choose perfect actors, to permanently keep the balance between the real and the imaginary, was also open to dialogues with other cultures. I can only regret that he only got to direct a few films, but I have 12 more to discover.