NOBODY KNOWS (2004), dir. Hirokazu Koreeda

Home Alone Four

A certifiable art house hit, having played in New York City over a month so far, Koreeda’s “Nobody Knows” tells the story of four abandoned children, left to fend for themselves in an unnamed Japanese city. That the main characters are so young immediately arouses our sympathy. The way they convincingly survive for several months without parental supervision engages our intellect. Koreeda doesn’t seek to entertain so much as inform the public about the serious social problem of child abandonment in Japan. Yet the movie is never short of engrossing, with great performances from a nearly all-child cast.

Nothing seems amiss at first, as a woman moves into an apartment with her 12-year old son, Akira (A bright-eyed Yuya Yagira). She tells the landlords that her husband is overseas, and they readily accept this explanation for his absence. But once they are gone, mother and child unzip a pair of large suitcases, revealing two more children: Akira’s younger sister Yuki (Momoko Shimizu), and little brother Shigeru (Hiei Kimura). Soon after, Akira goes to the nearby train station to pick up another sister, Kyoko (Ayu Kitaura), this one only a few years younger. He sneaks her back into their new home, where, over dinner, the mother reminds them that they must never leave the apartment, not even to go out onto the fire escape (Except Kyoko, to do the laundry). We surmise that, the building owners would probably evict the family, if they found out its actual size.

The not-unfamiliar story of a large family and single mom struggling against the odds is immediately thrown for a loop. The mother, it turns out, is crazy (or simply selfish—the movie never makes it clear). She abandons the children for several months to work in Osaka. Conceivably, she also goes there to spend time with a man who doesn’t know she has this brood.

Eventually, the children are abandoned for good, their money supply dwindling (She left Akira with 100,000 yen, the equivalent of $1000, which doesn’t last long). They ask some of the former men in their mother’s life for help, but the one-time beaus and suspected fathers of Kyoko, Yuki, and Shigeru, are down on their luck themselves. Whatever scraps of money they can get from these men, and from their mother, when she occasionally mails them, isn’t enough to keep food on the table, or the utilities on. Their meager support also isn’t enough to keep the sadness of being left behind from slowly creeping in.

For the most part, “Nobody Knows” observes its four main characters as they try to get on alone. Too young to work, not enrolled in school, isolated from the world (except for Akira), they spend their days trying to maintain a sense of purpose in lives cast adrift. For the three younger siblings, passing time consists of playing indoors, performing household chores, and staring longingly out the window. Akira, by contrast, has no time to waste. Practically conscripted into adulthood by his status as eldest child, he has more responsibilities thrust upon him than someone his age should. He keeps the budget, buys groceries, and otherwise runs around the city performing errands while his peers have fun.

Koreeda explores the children's alienated status throughout the first half of the film. Personally, I found this half to be the more satisfying one, specifically because it was less plotted. It concerns itself more with how the family interacts (or fails to interact) with their environment. Not having the regular channels of school or play through which to establish bonds with other children, Akira in particular stands apart. Koreeda emphasizes this social gulf through subtle visual technique, specifically, juxtaposition.

Throughout the first half of the film, he constantly frames Akira walking past kids in his age group. They dot the sidewalks, cluster inside arcades, linger aimlessly in groceries stores reading comic books. Notice how they barely move, while Akira is always moving. By framing him side-by-side with those other kids, who bear their lackadaisicalness with a laugh and a smile, the director makes it clear that Akira, whose smile is fleeting, and who always seems to be on his way somewhere, is not quite living like a normal child. Juxtaposing him visually with other children draws attention to what is missing in his life. Much different from scenes with his siblings, where Akira merely stands out as older.

In the second half, outsiders begin to enter the family’s world, not always to good effect. Two kids Akira’s age, who earlier framed him for stealing at a grocery store, try to persuade him to bite the proverbial hand that feeds him. They distract Akira from his duties as de facto patriarch. Another character who enters the picture is a depressed young girl, a drop-out who embraces the family’s outsider status. She becomes like an older sister to Yuki and Sumi, but her means of earning money, which she gives to Akira, seems to exacerbate his feelings of helplessness.

While the new characters are interesting, and there are some happy moments in store as well, the second half is basically one long slide into increasingly sadder circumstances. Four siblings and a friend, all age 14 or under, cannot pull themselves out of the slump of poverty. It is a credit to Koreeda that he doesn’t try to compose a fairy tale ending. Yet the unexpected jolt towards the film’s end, which I won’t give away, left a cold pallor over my heart. By giving us the ultimate tragedy, Koreeda emphasizes how utterly powerless his characters are. This, I agree, is necessary. It is also almost unbearable.

I watched this movie with someone who lived in Japan for several years. She was the one who informed me that the Japanese public has long ignored the problem of child abandonment. It’s funny, but when she said "ignore," I thought back to all the people Akira and his siblings encountered, who either tacitly accepted their desperate existence, or seemed perfectly oblivious to it. I distinctly recall the scene where Akira and the drop-out girl are at the supermarket buying soft drinks. The girl stands there clean and well-groomed, while Akira looks like Mowgli stumbled out of Kipling’s The Jungle Book. But the cashier doesn’t notice this; he simply takes their money, then turns a blind eye.

Blind eye-turning happens a lot. For a while, the family lives out of a public park, within plain sight of people. Social services never comes a-calling, which leads one to believe that nobody called them.

And therein lies the real tragedy: Not that the kids have been abandoned, but nobody cares they’ve been abandoned. The public does not see them suffering, perhaps, because they deceive themselves into thinking the situation is perfectly ordinary. Yeah, all those other children are Akira's cousins. Yeah, the boy looks slovenly because all boys do. Nobody acknowledges these kids are abandoned. Nobody wants to. Should they pass out of the world, no one would know they had left. No one would know to miss them.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)