Sharasôju (2003) User Reviews

A slow-paced sober film about family, life & love in a Japanese provincial town

[Duckhunter_NL · 7/10 · 28 July 2004]

Shara is about a family living in a (beautifully shot) Japanese town, which is a bit devoid of the modern culture we'd expect from Japan. The people live in a traditional way, and prepare for the annual Shara-festival. The film begins with a beautifully long shot running through the city. Some years ago, the family has experienced a trauma, which they still cannot come to terms with. Everyone is still in denial and shock, and tries to put away their emotions by diverting their attention to something else: making a painting, organizing the Shara festival, etc. We follow the main protagonist, teenager Shun, through life and love after his traumatic youth. He's in love with Yu, who has to deal with her own family problems.

The turning-point in the film is the opening procession of the festival itself. It's really exciting to watch the dance with its clapping and shouting, especially in the torrential rain that suddenly starts halfway through. The contrast with the 'restrained' first hour of the film is enormous. After rain comes sun, which is symbolical for the family, maybe even in a cliché way. But it works! It's great cinema. Near the end of the film, a happy family event takes place, which brings hope for the future.

It's not an easy film to watch, it's very slow-paced, and some scenes with little activity take some patience to watch. But I think it brings you more on the level of the family and daily events in Nara (it's actually the birthplace of the director). And some beautiful long takes of the city are a joy to watch.

Don't be in a hurry, and maybe you'll experience a beautiful, quiet and spiritual film. (If you are in a hurry, please leave the cinema quietly.)

7/10, I'm not really sure yet

A Nutshell Review: Shara

[DICK STEEL · 8/10 · 28 August 2008]

First and foremost, I thought the camera took on a life of its own, and drew a lot of attention to itself. It's free-wheeling, panning, tracking and zooming into noises that call out for notice. In some sense, it took on voyeuristic elements as it seemed we're right there with the characters and witnessing incidents as they unfold in the movie at first person's perspective. Not only that, Kawase has a penchant of incredibly long takes, not slow moving all the time though, but having scenes reveal themselves in one continuous shot. I would've imagined the nightmare during production should someone mess up, and the need to start over. Shots following characters also seem to be favourites, where it felt like we had to perpetually chase after the characters to follow on every plot development.

The story's nothing to shout about, as it looks at the lives of a household in Nara, Japan, after a member of the family mysteriously disappears, leaving behind mom Reiko (Naomi Kawase), dad Taku (Katsuhisa Namase) and their son Shun (Kohei Fukungaga). The opening shot's quite peculiar as well, as a slow moving camera rotates about in a room, as we hear continuous background chimes from the neighbourhood temple, with the voices of Shun and brother Kei conversing, and finally seeing them through window reflections, before a game of "follow me" turns into mystery, one which never gets resolved conclusively in the movie, unless you deem that the eyes from which we watch the movie, is from the eyes and perspective of Kei's.

Kei's disappearance is classic X-Files, just as how Fox Mulder had to deal with Samantha's own, and here we follow the family and how they each dealt with this - as one of the unseen characters puts it - case of "spirited away". Taku immerses himself in organizing the annual Basara street festival as its chairperson, while mom Reiko cultivates green fingers. Shun, blaming himself for losing sight of his brother, exorcises his demons through painting, and from the care given by girlfriend and neighbour Yu (Yuka Hyyoudo), who turns out to be living with her aunt. Even then, the theme of loss doesn't get forgotten, in another long talkie scene where Yu learns of how she came to live in a foster home under the guardianship of her aunt, in a rather incestuous tale that sounded a wee bit incredible, though surprisingly moving.

All's not doom and gloom though in Shara, in case you're wondering if this movie's slow pace would be your cup of tea, or whether you'll feel down after watching a sad movie. The movie ends off with a rather uplifting note of hope, where the anticipated birth of a child with a fine penis (yes, it was from the movie, OK?) lies in stark contrast with the mysterious loss of one in the beginning. In fact, things start to pick up (in pace even) after the Basara street festival scene, where before the narrative dealt with the mulling over Kei, and had generous allowance to set up all the principal characters.

And what a spectacle the Basara street performance was! Though it was highly repetitive, you can't deny the exuberant energy that the camera captured from the performers, entertaining all in a mesmerizing dance on the streets, which turned into a wet rain dance sequence under heavy downpour. If any scene would've stuck in your mind after you leave the theatre, this would be it, with a little wry scene where Shun had in his crowd control duties, inadvertently blocked the view of a cute knee-high tall child with his palm.

Shara turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable, and I now look forward to the documentary by Tetsuaki Matsue titled Summer Vacation with Naomi Kawase.

The Zen of doing without doing

[chaos-rampant · 14 March 2013]

Zen, transliterated from Japanese, means 'to manifest the simple'. Easier said than done, starting with the basic acknowledgment that nothing is really simple in life. In the madcap terms of Zen, however, it means precisely that-nothing is simple in life. Better said, it's riding a horse, and there's no man on the saddle, and no horse under it. So how to convey nothing at all?

Well, look no further. This filmmaker, Kawase, is after my own heart, she nails it. She has a rather flat dramatic sense, but the rest is pretty wonderful.

This is some of the best cinematic Zen I know. It has the 'free and easy wandering'. It's visibly imperfect, relaxed but faintly echoes of melancholy. As with L'avventura, a disappearance is the tip of the thread. Nothing really happens, except between loss and new life, there is some life. The camera floats around corners of life, it takes you there. We marvel at different textures, types of light; gardens abound. Next to Sans Soleil, this is one of the best films to transport you to Japan.

It's simple. The idea, laid out early in a talk between the organizers of a dance street festival, is to convey a sense of joy and participation, it's to create out of nothing, in the streets, a spontaneous atmosphere. However, the spectator has to participate, that is you. In essence, it's the same idea that drives both meditation and Japanese tea. It's sitting down, letting what you think it should be all about flow out, so that, hopefully, you're left with what it all was in the first place.

In our case, it's the connection between people.

It's magical when it happens, on the day of the festival. Viewers will be puzzled by what the repetitive dance is supposed to mean, those more perceptive perhaps tying it to the Buddhist mantra chanted earlier in a temple. It means nothing, that's the beauty. It's there, like the dance in the film, to take you from humdrum life to joyful appreciation of it being what it is.

It's magical, because the dance is really nothing, they're doing (a whole troope) the same thing over and over again. And yet it's infectious, diffused in the air it shapes the experience. What you see is better than metaphor, it's transcendent-it actually transforms the weather.

Something to meditate upon.

In "Shara" maverick Japanese filmmaker Ms.Kawase Naomi has shown that a family is a great source of joy.

[FilmCriticLalitRao · 10/10 · 7 August 2014]

A family will always remain a sacred institution for cinema if we take into account the depiction of families on silver screen.It is believed that American cinema and European cinema are known for their spontaneous portraits of family life.However,most national cinemas in Asia including Japanese cinema prefer to sketch a highly restrained description of family life.All erudite viewers have witnessed that in films by Ozu Saan.This is exactly something which viewers can experience in Japanese film "Sharasojyu" directed by renowned Japanese director Kawase Naomi.Her film can be termed as an extremely exquisite portrait of family life.Most filmmakers would evoke a birth and a death in their films to talk about human lives.However,Kawase Saan has gone a step further by choosing to depict in a charming reverse order a death /a disappearance and a birth to present her views about simple life in a small Japanese town.Her film appears admirably genuine and refreshingly honest as family tensions have been consigned to an inferior position to extract best performances from actors to effectively portray other human qualities such as community living and friendship.Many a times all viewers wish that a film must not remain a film but become life.This wish comes true in a particular scene when an entire town is dancing.One is not human if that dance sequence does not stir noblest of feelings in your heart and sad tears tinged with happiness on your cheeks.PS : Film critic Lalit Rao would like to thank a good friend Mr.Philippe Pham for having gifted a DVD of this film for detailed analysis.

Exquisitely photographed but emotionally detached

[ksandness · 7/10 · 29 March 2008]

This film starts like a mystery or possibly a J-horror flick. Twin boys, Shun and Kei, are washing up after getting ink spilled on them, when suddenly Kei takes off like a rabbit without explanation. He leads Shun on a chase through the narrow, winding streets of their neighborhood in the ancient city of Nara, and vanishes literally within the few seconds that he is out of Shun's sight. Shun wanders around bewildered, and when he finds his parents, he seems unable to articulate what has happened.

Fast forward ten years. Shun is now in high school, a quiet young man who has a platonic friendship with a girl named Yu. Life at home is quiet and subdued to the point of isolation. In fact, the movie contains surprisingly little dialogue. Shun's father is a blue collar craftsmen of some sort (he has a workshop inside the family's sprawling old house), and his mother is in an advanced state of pregnancy. Each member of the family moves around the house as if not aware of the others, and meals are silent affairs.

The only vitality in the film comes from scenes in which Shun's father is involved with the neighborhood's Basara festival. The discussions with the neighbors are spirited and believable.

In a subplot, Yu learns that the woman who has raised her is not her mother but her aunt. This earthshaking news is revealed matter-of-factly as Yu and her putative mother are walking down the street.

At one point in the film, Shun overhears his father talking to a policeman. Kei has been found, and the father is supposed to come and identify him. He is dead, not abducted and kept prisoner, as has happened in a couple of cases that were in the news recently in Japan, but the viewer knows that only because he never comes home. We are never given any details, not even at the very end, when the soundtrack of the disappearance scene is replayed while the camera moves ever farther away, culminating in an aerial view of Nara, which is exceedingly frustrating, since we saw his disappearance from Shun's point of view.

Learning that Kei is dead does nothing to raise the emotional temperature inside the house. Everyone is locked into themselves, and despite occasional outbursts, everyone seems to be hurting silently and alone. Even the birth of another son seems to excite the neighbors and the midwife more than it does the members of the family.

As another reviewer said, the festival scenes are truly wonderful, as is the cinematography in general. You see the life of a typical traditional Japanese neighborhood, sense its small-town atmosphere, with everyone knowing everyone else's business, and even feel the muggy heat of summer. I've lived in Japan, and those scenes made me "homesick." However, because I've lived in Japan, I know that the emotional detachment portrayed in the film is extreme even by the standards of that culture. The emotional flatness and the unresolved plot detract from what could have been a moving study of a family adjusting to the certainty of grief after years of uncertainty.

Maverick Japanese filmmaker Ms.Kawase Naomi shows that a family is a great source of joy !!!!!

[Film_critic_Lalit_Rao · 10/10 · 11 June 2010]

A family will always remain a sacred institution for cinema if we take into account the depiction of families on silver screen.It is believed that American cinema and European cinema are known for their spontaneous portraits of family life.However,most national cinemas in Asia including Japanese cinema prefer to sketch a highly restrained description of family life.All erudite viewers have witnessed that in films by Ozu Saan.This is exactly something which viewers can experience in Japanese film "Sharasojyu" directed by renowned Japanese director Kawase Naomi.Her film can be termed as an extremely exquisite portrait of family life.Most filmmakers would evoke a birth and a death in their films to talk about human lives.However,Kawase Saan has gone a step further by choosing to depict in a charming reverse order a death /a disappearance and a birth to present her views about simple life in a small Japanese town.Her film appears admirably genuine and refreshingly honest as family tensions have been consigned to an inferior position to extract best performances from actors to effectively portray other human qualities such as community living and friendship.Many a times all viewers wish that a film must not remain a film but become life.This wish comes true in a particular scene when an entire town is dancing.One is not human if that dance sequence does not stir noblest of feelings in your heart and sad tears tinged with happiness on your cheeks.PS : Film critic Lalit Rao would like to thank a good friend Mr.Philippe Pham for having gifted a DVD of this film for detailed analysis.

A story about liberation

[cruizca · 5/10 · 18 November 2020]

With very long sequence shots and with the camera in hand, Naomi Kawase tells us the story of the empty space left in Shun by the disappearance of her brother. Shara is the village festival around which the whole plot revolves; a cultural rite organized by Shun's (Kohei Fukungaga) parents. That festival has a liberating role in the character.

To do this, and taking advantage of Kawase's experience in documentary filmmaking, Shara places special emphasis on locating ourselves in that "limited space" through descriptive shots. In addition, the film fulfills its cultural function of showing us the local culture; she plays the piano and he paints. However, Shara continues with the Asian custom of doing it from a distance and as another inhabitant, so as not to invade the character's privacy; a cultural issue.

Another of the themes that the film deals with is the aesthetics of the self-portrait. Naomi Kawase tells in her documentaries how she was abandoned by her parents and raised by her grandmother; something that is reflected in Shara in details such as the pain caused by photos and the comforting power of memory. In addition, the director herself stated that the presence of nature somehow connects the presence of people.

For this reason, the sequence shot that begins the film is especially important. Its objective is to place us in space, mark the distance from the characters and show us, through sound and nature, the "ghost of absence". However, the shot is imperfect, and only follows the aesthetics of the director's need, since she needs the absence to start; it is the central theme of all her work. Years later, Shun will return to the place where she lost her brother.

Also, rhythm has a very powerful empathic function. The beginning of the film is slow and contemplative, while, after the kiss with Yu (Yuka Hyyoudo) and its palliative effect on Shun, the film appropriates the rhythm that it did not have at the beginning; it is the way to the festival, the end; the definitive release of the load.

The festival has a healing function. The rhythm of the music helps them to get rid of that supernatural emptiness that they had been carrying for years, which is present through the rain (the natural). At this point in the movie, even we share the process with them.

The film ends in the opposite way to how it began: a life comes into the world, and everyone celebrates it. The camera does a reverse tracking shot and we return, with the same music and setting, to where everything had started an hour and forty minutes ago. The camera rises and says goodbye to the city and nature for the last time. Silence, the circle closes.

For dreams to come true

[mrdonleone · 8/10 · 24 October 2022]

Certain people are interesting. Most of these people have opportunities to portray their talents in the best way they can: in other words, most fascinating people are found in Hollywood. Asia does not have the benefits of America, but still now and then there appear some gold busters that know just how to capture that fragrant of our imagination quite well. This is such a case. Everything goes extremely slow as if Andy Warhol suddenly got reborn as a Chinaman, but that's exactly the art and magic of the movie. It fascinates but only at the ending one might fall asleep by the rhythm having gotten hold of them; but for the rest, wonderful movie.