Release Date (UK DVD) – 3rd October 2011
Certificate (UK) – 12
Runtime – 112 minutes
Country – Japan
Director – Yûya Ishii
Starring – Hikari Mitsushima, Masashi Endô, Kira Aihara
Sawako Decides follows the life of Sawako, a girl who is constantly striving to be average but always feels short of the mark. Taking on love, business, the economy and the environment, Sawako finally decides to be in command of her life. Critically acclaimed on its release (Official Selection: Berlin Film Festival, London Film Festival; Winner ‘Best Film’ and ‘Best Actress’ – Fantasia International Film Festival), the film is written and directed by Yûya Ishii and starts actress and former pop star Hikari Mitsushima, up and coming actor Masashi Endô and, making her debut performance, child actress Kira Aihara.
After five years in Tokyo, five part time jobs and now onto her fifth boyfriend, Sawako receives a phone call from her uncle demanding that she return home. Despite having run away from home for a reason, her boyfriend Kenichi (Endô) convinces her to go back to her hometown to face her father, uncle, the freshwater clam company and the people of the town that she left behind. After several incidents in the town Sawako has to take charge and do what she can to turn around the company and her relationship, whilst coming to terms with her father’s impending death.
Part rom-com, part drama, part comedy, Sawako Decides moves between different boundaries to produce a quite unique film. It peters on the edge of romantic and then pulls itself back to being a drama, then as quickly as that happens it will swiftly become hilarious. Nothing is dealt with too delicately in this film, indeed it opens with Sawako having a colonic irrigation, which is without a doubt one of the strangest first scenes in a film history.
This is all part of the charm of the film; where it could quickly have slipped into following convention and being a standard chick-flick, Ishii always reins it back into being more than any normal film. With such an unconventional opening, the rest of the film follows that path and the ending fits that mould.
There are a few main themes that carry throughout the film: Sawako’s low self esteem, the economy and the environment. All of these elements of the film are taken both very seriously and very lightly at the same time, which results in some very tragic scenes. At the heart of all of these problems is Sawako, and the repressed memories of her life at home.
Sawako’s self esteem issues are evident quite early on, as 75% of her dialogue is taken up with ‘sorry’, ‘thank you’ and ‘maybe you are right.’ She walks through life as a ghost repeating her mantra ‘I’m nothing special’, and sinks further into that pit of sadness. Although there are a few points when she walls in-front of the TV with a few beers, she seems to be quite comfortable with how miserable she feels, which is quite a hard concept to come to terms with.
Mitsushima carries off the broken, apologetic twenty-something in a way that is pitiful but still very entertaining. Spending the first part of the film either hobbling around or apologising, it is hard to not feel sorry for her. Then out of nowhere Sawako ‘decides’, as the film is so aptly called, to take control, and she does to sort things out, to an extent. Her crowning moment is when she stands up and delivers a passionate speech about why she left her hometown, storms off, and then returns to apologise for sounding too bossy.
Endô’s irritating and also quite pathetic boyfriend Kenichi spends much of the film forcing his child to love Sawako, and then leaves her at the drop of a hat. His fascination with knitting, and the naive conviction which Endô portrays so well are what make him an easy-to-hate but still pitiable person. He talks about how he desperately wants to have an eco-life style, but cringes while the toilet is cleaned out onto the fruit and vegetable patch. (This is a joke that reoccurs when many people are eating the watermelon which grew from that excrement).
The mediator between Mitsushima and Endô is Kenichi’s daughter Kayoko. The poor child is dragged along to all of her father’s dates with Sawako and is physically forced into giving Sawako a kiss, against the best wishes of Kayoko and Sawako. Quiet for most of the film, the very occasional times she does speak has a lot of impact, and cuts through all of her father’s illusions. Again much like the other characters she has a few moments of comedy, particularly after she sees the news item about a child that was beaten to death in a bath and then has to go have a bath with Sawako. All expressed through pure facial expression, this scene is very funny.
The bonus features for Sawako Decides are nothing special: there is a rather bland interview with the director which opens with an apology for the bad sound quality due to the air conditioning in the room. And there is also a special message from the director before the film, a theatrical trailer and trailers of other films distributed by Third Window releases.
Sawako Decides doesn’t settle on being any particular type of film, which really plays to its advantage. It is allowed to be emotional and funny at points, without fear of it contradicting itself. Each of the lead roles took this ethos on board with their performances which results in a very entertaining and enjoyable film.
Sawako Decides is released on DVD on October 3rd – Order it here
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