‘After the Sunset‘ (in Japanese ‘Yuhi No Ato‘) directed in 2019 by Michio Koshikawa offers a sincere and direct cinematic experience, which managed to capture my attention and make me feel the emotions and sympathise with the problems of the heroes despite all the geographical, cultural and social distances. The story is about motherhood and adoption, it is a little melodramatic and easily predictable, but it succeeds from a cinematic point of view precisely because it never tries to camouflage itself in something else, using with professionalism simple movie-making tools – narration, image, and acting.
The story takes place in a small village on an island where the main occupation of the inhabitants is fishing. Yuichi Hino is a fisherman, living with his mother and his wife, Satsuki, in what is probably a typical home of a typical family on the island. The two did not succeed to have a child despite intensive fertility treatments, and adopted a little boy, Towa, a charming child like almost any child on screen and in reality, talented at beating drums (a folk attraction and the hobby on the island), protected, loving and loved by those he considers to be his parents and by everyone else around him. The couple plans to legally adopt Towa near the age of seven, but the laws require the consent of the biological mother, even if she abandoned him three months after birth. To their surprise, the mother leaves nearby, she came to the island to be close to the boy and is looking to get back the motherhood she had given up in a moment of despair. Japanese law seems to favour the biological parents in such cases, and the movie sounds also as a critique of the situations created by these regulations. The confrontation between the two women who claim, each with her own arguments, each justified from a personal perspective, is inevitable.
Melodrama? I am not one of those who consider melodrama a minor genre. I don’t think, actually, that there are any minor genres. There are only good movies and bad movies, and ‘After the Sunset‘ is a movie I liked. Towa, the boy around whom the whole story revolves and the passions of the mature heroes is played wonderfully by a child actor named Towa Matsubara. The two women are very different in typology and characters. Satsuki (Maho Yamada) is a local woman devoted to her husband and adopted child whose existence is threatened by the danger of losing the child who has become an integral part of her family and life. Akane (Shihori Kanjiya) is a city girl who has gone through poverty and violence, who, after serving time for abandoning her child, asks for a second chance. Both actresses, like the rest of the cast, do a great job. The film has authenticity and sincerity and even if the ending is a little predictable and leaves the feeling that it is artificially lengthened, it brings to screen discreetly and delicately an interesting story and emotional issues.