Film Review: Himizu

When we are teenagers as much as we don’t want to admit it we need our parents.  Whether it’s to look up to them or revile them for what they do they still help to shape our view of the world and set us on the road to what will be our own life.  In Himizu though Shion Song looks at what happens when there is no road to the future, when the earthquake in Japan has taken away a boys hope to the point of losing who he is.

Sumida is a fourteen year old boy who believes he does not look to the future, he just lives for the now and expects nothing from life but hatred and abuse from his parents.  He feels he needs nobody and walks through life giving nothing back; he just wants to do nothing at all.  His school friend Keiko is obsessed with Sumida and tries to help him along with a band of misfits who live around his little house where he lives with his mother.  When his mother leaves though and his abusive father pushes him to the point where he kills him Sumida finds the true meaning of having nothing and not knowing a future, he becomes truly lost, can Keiko pull him out of his breakdown or is it too late for him?

The earthquake in Japan was a disaster that ruined many people’s lives and using this as the backdrop for the story is very topical and a stroke of brilliance really.  Showing the ruined landscape that the characters live in create a world where there is little to live for and crime flourishes where the selfish prosper.  Sumida as much as he wants to appear selfish is not a selfish person he just believes he’s given up on life and has nothing to live for, the murder of his father is his breaking point because that is the point in his life where his future leaves him, nobody is truly there to push him through, to abuse him or to berate him.  He almost enjoyed the feeling of being nothing because that is what made him feel alive.  The change in his character and the actions he takes after come from the way he deals with the loss of what was in worrying way stability.  He knew his mother and father hated him, he knew they would treat him badly and he knew they would abuse him, this made him feel something, they very thing he thought he could not do.

Himizu, as Keiko tells us is a shrew mole and this is what Sumida is trying to live like.  He has no expectations, his future was stole just like many people in Japan lost theirs when the earthquake hit, but the difference is they fight to build their lives back up.  Even the quirky characters who live around Sumida try to show him that and befriend him in the hope to give him something to live for.  For Sumida though I’d argue he uses them to preach to, to show that he is nothing, to the point that when one of his friends ruins his own life to pay a debt to help Sumida all he can do is show hate and scorn for this being done.  It is only though when Sumida has nothing that he truly finds himself.

Himizu is a very thoughtful film which goes far deeper than the average Hollywood hit; this is the reason I often look to Asian cinema because they like to do something different.  As with most of the best that come our way from that side of the world Himizu makes you think about the story that is being told, and because the source material is so strong (Himizu is based on the manga by Minoru Furuya) this is a film I’d highly recommend, especially for people looking for something a little different.

Himizu is available in the UK on Blu-ray and DVD now courtesy of Three Window Films

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