A beautifully measured melodrama that owes much to Yasujiro Ozu’s Japanese classic Tokyo Story, Still Walking examines intergenerational discord in the port city of Yokosuka. Here, the Yokoyama clan has gathered for their annual remembrance of favourite son Junpei, who drowned 12 years previously. The day thus throws up tensions and resentments between family members, and yet nothing ever bursts free in dramatic rage, nor is it purged in late-night catharses. Instead, and very Ozu-like, the wounds are simply left open, unhealed. “Children don’t necessarily grow up the way you want them to,” says the matriarch Toshiko (Kirin Kiki), in a way that is callous yet comforting. The film, typically, agrees.
Still Walking
Family discord is examined in a measured melodrama that owes much to Yasujiro Ozu’s Japanese classic Tokyo Story