NYAFF Report: SAD VACATION Review

With character and thematic links to Eureka, his breakthrough dramatic film, director Shinji Aoyama along with a stellar cast of Japan's best (Tadanobu Asano, Jo Odagiri, Aoi Miyazaki) here crafts a quiet, inward reflection of people living in the aftermath of extreme loss. In Eureka that loss was represented by a massacre aboard a bus, in Sad Vacation the loss is more realistic and closer to home, all of it keyed on people abandoned by their families. The end runs long and the final shot seems bafflingly out of place on first viewing but Sad Vacation still amply demonstrate that Aoyama is one of Japan's most distinct voices and greatest talents.

And, yes, for those keeping track of such things this is the film in which Tadanobu Asano finally cuts his hair after years of growing it out for Mongol, and he does so on camera.

Asano is Kenji, a quiet and withdrawn man who would be described later in the film as being basically good but also kind of scary - the sort that weaker personalities either follow or run from. When the film opens Kenji has somehow gotten himself involved with a Chinese gang based in Japan and is employed in a human smuggling organization. As is often the case in these situations not everybody survives the trip, the dead man in this case leaving behind an orphan son who forces Kenji - himself abandoned by his mother and orphaned when his father subsequently hung himself - to make a critical decision. Hearing that the child will fetch double the price of an adult, Kenji has a vision of what the future holds for the boy and opts to take him away and care for the lad himself, a decision that leaves Kenji's friend and partner dead and Kenji himself on the run.

We jump forward in time and meet Kozue, the young survivor of the horrible events chronicled in Eureka. Her father dead and mother run off, Kozue has left her home town to simply roam wherever her feet take her, eventually landing at Mamiya Transportation where she gets work as a driver. The kindly owner, Mamiya himself, gives her a place to stay and introduces her to the other employees, drifters all who have landed here as a last resort and become a sort of surrogate family.

The story's two threads cross one night when Kenji, now working as a for-hire driver who ferries drunken men and bar hostesses home in their own cars, gives Mamiya a lift back to the shop and recognizes the old man's wife, Chiyoko, as the mother who abandoned him years before. The sighting awakens long dormant feelings in Kenji and Chiyoko who then strike up a relationship in which attempts at reconciliation and revenge are so intertangled that it becomes impossible to tell them apart.

The program notes for Sad Vacation cast the film, in part at least, as a Greek tragedy, and that is a good starting place for it. The meotional entaglements are numerous and complicated, fate plays an enormous role, and it is remarkably difficult to discern whether the ending plays on a positive note or a hugely downbeat one. Asano's Kenji plays in a fairly straightforward arc but Chiyoko, his mother, is absolutely inscrutable in her emotions. While her past actions are explained her present behavior can be spun any number of ways, all of which seem equally valid. Is she trying to make up for her past failures? Is she using her children for her own satisfaction regardless of the cost to them? Is she malicious in her decisions? All could be correct and this seems to be at least partially the point. Aoyama seems to be arguing that everybody has tragedy in their life, everybody has losses to overcome, and the only line seperating those made stronger by their losses and those made monstrous are the decisions they make in how they choose to perceive and respond to their situation. Aoyama, as is his tendency these days, shoots with a remarkably natural eye, allowing things to play out simply and without gloss. His entire cast is remarkably strong, Asano reminding yet again why he is one of the most in-demand actors in the world while Aoi Miyazaki steps back into the role that made her famous in Japan. The support players are equally up to the task, though I'd have liked to see more of Odagiri.

Like many Aoyama films Sad Vacation will puzzle, bore or infuriate as many as it will enchant. He's as difficult a talent as he is fascinating and this is a flawed entry in his canon, as strong as many elements are. But still, a near miss from Aoyama counts for more than a sure hit from most.