Still Walking 2008

This quietly wondrous new film from the director of Nobody Knows and After Life demonstrates his mastery of a distinctively Japanese form, the ‘home drama’, savouring the balance of bitter and sweet of family life – just as it is and not as it maybe ought to be. A day-long extended family reunion is observed with humour and a sharp wise eye for the ways in which each individual family member is straining, almost immediately, at the leashes that bind him or her to the others. — BG

“In the lovely multigenerational portrait Still Walking Kore-eda... depict[s] with subtle grace the interplay of affection and resentment among an extended, uniquely dysfunctional family. Over the course of a languorous summer afternoon, elderly parents host their two children – boisterous spouses and offspring in tow – for a commemoration of beloved son and sibling Junpei's tragic death 15 years earlier... interacting with a blend of tenderness and impatience as only relatives can. Throughout, Junpei's ghost haunts the day's quotidian incidents and petty squabbles just as the benevolent specter of Yasujiro Ozu, Japan's great chronicler of family dynamics, hovers over Kore-eda's domestic reverie. With its perfect performances and quiet build-up of fleeting pleasures – the flight of a yellow butterfly, the sizzle of frying tempura – Still Walking resonates long after twilight descends upon the Yokoyama clan, whom viewers will love – and begrudge – as their own.” — Steven Jenkins, San Francisco Film Festival

“This sublimely poignant character study will likely... be recognised in time as one of the best Japanese family dramas ever put on film.” — Edmund Lee, Time Out Hong Kong