I’ve kept this in the drafts since the first wave of C-19 and completely forgot I wrote it. My knowledge of Hirokazu Koreeda’s filmography was pretty spotty prior to 2020. I had only seen
Still Walking, Shoplifters, Nobody Knows and
Like Father Like Son. After
Shoplifters hit me like a ton of bricks I made it my purpose to get familiar with everything he’d done up to then (to be honest - I hadn't even made the connection that he directed all the aforementioned films I'd seen). With the world being shut down and having been laid off from a profession that got hit the hardest by covid, I had nothing to do but watch movies all the time. I made it my purpose to get familiar with Koreeda's filmography.
Distance became an immediate personal favorite. I’m a sucker for incredibly heavy subject manner presented in a very dry and subdued kind of way.
Somewhere between the imagery of Ozu, the tone & pacing of Bresson and a very dark event loosely based on something that really happened lies
Distance - the story about the trauma left behind from the actions of a death cult. Had this movie been made by any other director there’s a strong chance it would’ve been “edgy” & exploitative. Koreeda's execution is more reserved. Instead of focusing directly on cults and suicide, Koreeda drops us in the aftermath of everything and we’re left putting the pieces together.
In
Distance, we follow the family of cult members that attempted to poison Tokyo’s water supply years ago. Things didn’t go according to plan but the cult did follow through with a mass suicide. Three years later, their family members gather at the cult’s former base to observe the anniversary of their deaths (in a way - they sort of form their own cult).
Neither Ozu or Bresson would ever make a movie like this but the visual similarities and surface-level influences are undeniable to me.
Koreeda has never shied away from shouting out Bresson's work...
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L'Argent /
Distance |
L’ARGENT is like a textbook, which I review before shooting each new film of mine - Hirokazu Kore-eda, thefilmstage.com
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L'Argent /
Distance |
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L'Argent /
Distance |
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| L'Argent / Distance |
When it comes to Ozu, Koreeda is a bit more dismissive. He has acknowledged the comparisons
others have made but he clearly isn't a fan...
The motif of family in STILL WALKING is similar to MABOROSI, so perhaps that’s where the Ozu comparison comes from - Hirokazu Koreeda, therumpus.net
I think part of the reason Koreeda dismisses/resents(?) the Ozu comparison is partially because it is a bit lazy and predictable to compare two Japanese filmmakers that make contemplative dramas. But...
Distance has some serious (surface-level) Ozu imagery to me (sorry if this makes me lazy).
I also find it funny when a legendary director like Ozu is called influential and impactful in text form only and no one questions it or asks for a specific example, but when you show countless VISUAL similarities, suddenly everyone takes issue with it or suddenly can't make the correlation.
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Early Spring /
Distance |
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Early Spring /
Distance |
Koreeda pulled the idea of the death cult and their plan to poison Tokyo’s water supply from the real events of the
Aum Supreme Cult and their attempt to carry out a chemical weapons attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. Because
Distance is loosely based on this tragic event carried out by some terrible people, the movie challenges the idea of who deserves to be grieved.
Grief and the idea of dealing with it has become such a vague subject. Especially in film. It’s gotten to the point where every movie is about grief in some way that it sort of lessens the definition. But
Distance is one of the exceptions. Not only is the film about grief and how one deals with loss, but Koreeda complicates things by making the lost loved ones cult members who planned to kill thousands. Do they deserve to be grieved by their loved ones even if they attempted to pull off an unforgivable crime? Perhaps that isn’t for anyone outside of family to decide.
Either way this movie is a quiet masterpiece that weirdly became my comfort film during the first wave of the covid lockdown. I can't recommend it enough.
