Be With You

In my long hiatus, I've gone from books to films in a big way. I actually finished three books in NZ--Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree, but after starting work, I've been so tired (ever the root source of lazy, isn't it?) that I've turned to film instead for my brain's gym workout. Most recently, I saw this Japanese film Be With You over in Cineleisure. I wonder if it's really been so long since I last succumbed to melodrama that I've lost my cynical immunity to tearjerker cliches, for I swore, if I hadn't been in a public place (and watching together with a female friend--the auto-reflexive male machismo kicked in) I would totally have been reduced to kleenex solvent.

Be With You dir. Nobuhiro Doi

To sum it up, Be With You is an entire Japanese drame (do-ra-ma) condensed into a 2hr movie, complete with all the requisite scenes of people getting run over by automobiles, drenched in the rain, running from point B to point A to catch person B just in time before B disappears...you get the drift. Except that BWY is all of this and more. What differentiates this film from all the usual run-of-the-mill soap opera is the incredible chemistry between the two leads and the childlike naivete through which the tale is told (it is no silly contrivance that the film is framed within the reminiscience of the story's boy narrator Yuji).

By now, the relentless machinery of marketing has already informed the world countless times over that the lead actor and lead actress of the film, Shidou Nakamura and Yuko Takeuchi, fell for each other while filming the movie. While some may treat this as tired trivia, there is no doubt that their real-life attraction to each other translated to great effect in reel-life. When shy and awkward Aio (played by Nakamura) offers his jacket pocket to the hesitant Mio (Takeuchi) to warm her hands, we are infected with a warm fuzziness that is not unlike a fleece blanket on a cold night, mug of cocoa in front of a campfire on a wintry evening outside, a girlfriend's cuddling against that hollow in your shoulder. For those who still spend their weekends wondering when and where they will meet that special someone, the film, replete with moments like this one, gives momentary relief--a flirtation with love, if you must. In the vocabulary of Japanese film, there is no need for long, passionate French kisses or naked gymnastics (think Mr. and Mrs. Smith). All you have is a raised eyebrow, a nervous twitch of the lip, a stolen glance and that is all it takes to convey a romance far more convincing and affecting than in most summer Hollywood blockbusters.

Yuji, the young son of the ill-fated couple, is a pivotal figure in the movie. Not simply the prototypical wide-eyed Japanese cute kid, he also takes on the more important role as the narrative voice for the story. It is important that the movie is told through his glassy-eyed perspective, for it is only through a child's ignorant innocence that the story's absurd conjurations can be so utterly believable. Fairy-tales were made for children after all. However, it is also because we see the couple's story through the child's eyes that the pathos is made so much more powerful, for who can stand that thought of letting the tragedy of loss befall a child (not least the prototypical wide-eyed Japanese cute kid)? Needless to say, our heart-strings are stretched like a bungee cord, given reprieve only to suffer repeated and continued stress. Let the floodgates open.

Watching this movie is a cathartic release. In two hours, you would have lived through your childhood, your first love, your first loss and your first child all over again. And unless you're a heartless bastard (or just a damn si-ai-mien-zhi guy like me) you will definitely cry your heart out. bring kleenex? no way, bring a towel to dry your eyes and a pair of shades to hide under on your way out.