Still Walking (2009): B+

Still Walking has a modesty that’s apt to be mistaken for slightness, as Hirokazu Kore-eda’s (After Life, Nobody Knows) tale of a day-and-night familial reunion has such a patient, tranquil surface that it’s easy to overlook the complex interpersonal dynamics at play. Indebted to the domestic-strife dramas of both Ozu and Naruse, Kore-eda’s latest assembles two generations of the Yokoyama clan on the anniversary of the oldest son’s death, a wound that’s yet to heal and which proves the most pressing (though hardly the only) cause of both adults and children’s anger, resentment and sorrow. With the action confined to the parents’ cramped living quarters, Kore-eda creates an affecting claustrophobia in tune with the oppressive emotions stifling his characters. While his direction can at times be a tad wooden and inexpressive, his avoidance of overt flourishes – save for a clunky bit of butterfly symbolism – nonetheless maintains primary focus on his subtly simmering conflicts. The director neither wholly condemns nor absolves of responsibility any of his subjects, all of whom are burdened by their own unrealized expectations for others. The family’s nurturing mother (a wonderful Kirin Kiki) is prone to blunt, callous, judgmental asides about her kids, and the surviving son’s (Horoshi Abe) suppressed fury at his pompous retired doctor father – who disapproves of his offspring’s non-medical profession – is complicated by his own absence of a backbone. Still Walking can be a tad obvious in laying out its tangled relationships but its sincere consideration of its characters’ longing for acceptance and approval – as well as its pinpoint accumulation of household and cooking details – rings true, right up to a conclusion that wordlessly expresses the inextricable if often unwanted influence parents have on their progeny.