Summary
A meditative and occasionally absurdist meditation on grief and an examination of Japanese funerals. A terrific cast highlights a raw and occasionally dark dip into personal histories.
Actor and singer Takumi Saito (Shin Godzilla, TV’s Akira and Akira) makes his feature directorial debut with BLANK 13, attracting an impressive cast for a heartfelt exploration of the uniqueness of funerals in Japan. It’s also based on the true story of broadcast writer Koji Hashimoto, who provided the story inspiration for the film.
Initially told through a series of non-linear fragments, we learn it has been 13 years since Koji Matsuda (Issei Takahashi) has seen his father Masato (Lily Franky), who quite literally walked out to buy cigarettes and never came back. When his older brother (Saito) learns of their father’s whereabouts, albeit in the final stages of terminal cancer, the brothers and their mother Yoko (Misuzu Kanno) must decide how they deal with their feelings after a ‘blank’ 13 years.
Hashimoto and screenwriter Mitsutoshi Saijo’s narrative acknowledges that there is more than one way to look at a life. An early bit of dark humour comes in a case of mistaken funeral identity, with a number of mourners turning up for the wrong Matsuda’s funeral. “It teaches you the value of a person’s life,” comments a mourner at Masato’s smaller and less attended service.
Yet it’s through this service that we learn so much about the ‘blank’ years in their father’s life. An eclectic group of characters relay their stories about the Masato they knew, from his addiction to mahjong, his love of karaoke, and his fondness for magic tricks. This is how the brothers learn of a man they never found a way to like.
By contrast, Koji’s own memories are filled with a very different portrait. The incurable gambling. The loan sharks banging on their door all night. A mother who had to struggle to make ends meet in their father’s absence. Fragmentary moments of baseball practice sandwiched between seemingly dismissed accomplishments.
For his first stint in the director’s chair, Saito’s long list of acting credits have paid off with a terrific cast led by Issei Takahashi (The Limit of Sleeping Beauty) and the incomparable Lily Franky, whose face naturally defaults to a tragicomic state. Indeed, Franky’s presence provides an almost instant tonal recall to the works of Hirokazu Koreeda, having appeared in Our Little Sister, and as his BLANK 13 character’s mirror in Like Father, Like Son. Each player gives an understated performance, but there is a world of grief and hurt lurking beneath the surface.
Which speaks to the duality of existence, something Hashimoto and Saito seem to be keen to explore. Indeed, audiences learn that well-attended funeral was not what it appeared to be either. As a version of ‘Kazoku no fūkei’ (‘Family Scene’) plays over the credits, and final farewell to Masato is given, and audiences hear the repeated refrain of “Hi-lite and a whiskey glass, in the kitchen/An ordinary scene of a family,” we can conclude that no life is simply the sum of its surface parts.
BLANK 13 screened at the Sydney Indie Film Festival on 25 September 2017.
