2014 ‘小さいおうち’ Directed by Yoji Yamada
Following the death of the unmarried and childless Taki, Takeshi, a young relative of hers, discovers several pages of closely written lines in which the old lady has recorded her memories. This is how he learns the truth about her youth working as a housemaid and nanny for the Hirai family in a little house in Tokyo with a red gabled roof.
Takako Matsu Haru Kuroki Satoshi Tsumabuki Chieko Baisho Yui Natsukawa Yukijiro Hotaru Isao Hashizume Kazuko Yoshiyuki Takatarô Kataoka Hidetaka Yoshioka Shigeru Muroi Takashi Sasano Fumino Kimura Tomoko Nakajima LaSalle Ishii Aki Takejo Yoneko Matsukane Satoshi Akiyama Fukutarô Ichikawa Masakane Yonekura Hayashiya Shōzō IX Nenji Kobayashi
Chiisai ouchi, La casa del tejado rojo, 小小的家, La Maison au toit rouge, The little house, 작은 집, Маленький дом, 東京小屋, 東京小屋的回憶
Japan
Hong Kong
France
Spain
France
Hong Kong
Japan
Spain
I, too, would cry if the young me were to marry an old man with children to be his third wife.
Anyway, the stories about the people in the little house during war are really sad, but I think the execution and the focus of the film were not enough to move me.
"لم يكن من المفترض أن أعيش طويلاً" بعد هالتساؤل أول شي طرا على بالي هو تغريدة لصديقة قالت : "ولما سألتَ الله العمر الطويل
هل كنت مستعداً لفقد الأحباب طيلة هذا العمر؟
Yamada classic touch is so lively. Slow but involving little tale of postwar Japan. Very touching.
Taki is an elderly Japanese lady whose death discloses her diary where she writes of living as a housemaid for the Hirai family in a lovely Tokyo house with a red tile roof from 1935 until the end of WWII. Her great-nephew reads the diary, the contents of which are shown in flashbacks. That is the structure of this beautifully rendered re-creation of the era, made dramatic by the re-telling of an affair between Taki's mistress and an artist that was employed by her master. Like every recent film by director Yamata (beloved by me for The Twilight Samurai trilogy), this is filmmaking as lovely and poignant as a Japanese watercolor landscape.
Chiisai ouchi (2014)
8/10
A heartfelt movie that is moving because of its performances rather than the plot itself. The events that happen in the film itself are quite... how to say it... breezed through? They just happen and in a way we just lament it, and much in a Japanese way, we are just left with our lamentations because of our wrongdoings in the past. In a way this feels like a continuation of Yamada's work in last year's Tokyo Family (a remake of Tokyo Story) and the visual style is quite impressive, but in the end, these melancholic films are better suited for someone like Ozu, who already died a long time ago.
Yamada-San is slowly becoming a voice i can strongly identify with. This poignant tale of recalling the regrets of the yore has a touch of Ozu is something we all can identify. Strong performances from the two ladies make it a refreshing albeit a tad overlong treat.
Okay. This is the old timey Yoji Yamada melodrama starring Haru Kuroki I was wanting.
Also: Joe Hisaishi gonna kick out them jams.
Sadly a bit of a mediocre adaptation of a fantastic book. Kinda impossible to talk about why that is without spoiling things, but the main gripe with this was how it handled the ending, which was incredibly striking in the book and marked a shift in tone and perspective, but here feels like a pretty standard, mellow conclusion that really takes any sort of punch out of the story.
Good news being that the cast is spot on and the Takako Matsu/Haru Kuroki duo a joy to watch. The whole family dynamic is something that works well, it's just that any wider context outside of the little house is almost completely shut out, which is in a way the point…
The life of a young maid (Haru Kuroki) and the family she works for in Tokyo from 1936 until WW2...
Since Yôji Yamada has become a favorite of mine I was happy to watch yet another family themed drama of his which left me a bit underwhelmed though.
I could easily connect to his characters in his other movies but here it was quite hard as the movie fails to build sympathy for the quasi main character (the maid's master) and neglects the intended main character (the maid herself) who tells the story in flashback sequences.
The family dynamics are still strong and highly influenced by 1930s/40s social 'rules', culture and historic events but the core relationship between the maid…
big fan of the sweeping historical epic backdrop with a narrow focus.. not sure how well it stuck the landing but my mind was preoccupied with my new business venture: beer patch, like a nicotine patch but for beer. i have been sober for almost 9 months now. anyway it’s a very sweet movie
Quite inert, lifeless and draggy. Shame, considering the talent involved. Thankfully, Haru Kuroki has gone on to far better things.
Yoji Yamada's film adaptation of Kyoko Makajima's novel The Little House (2014) was interesting. However, it turned out to me more of a melodrama than expected. I was probably most interested in how they portrayed typical Japanese during the war. The story was told as a flashback of an elderly aunt who was writing her memoirs for her nephew who served as a contemporary foil to challenge the truth of he memories by commenting on things such as 'the Rape of Nanking' and other less than favorable truths of Japan's war of aggression, but ultimately the story was about forbidden love, unrequited love, and atonement.
