Summary
A delightfully quirky rural comedy that’s full of satire and offbeat moments – until it becomes something else entirely.
To call Tadashi Nagayama’s BEING NATURAL (天然☆生活) weird would not only be underselling it, but possibly giving away too much. It’s this kind of contradiction that is at the heart of his second film, as he follows Journey of the Tortoise (2017) with a deeply satirical and often absurdist outing.
For the most part, the film concentrates on the happy-go-luck Taka (Yota Kawase), an unemployed man who has devoted much of his life to simply playing the bongos and looking after his uncle with dementia. When a Toyko couple and their daughter move into the country town, his life is thrown into upheaval as the outsiders become determined to open an old-fashioned cafe in Taka’s house.
BEING NATURAL is about as ironic a title as you could get, although the first half of the film plays along with the gag. The carefree life of Taka, his sometimes cantankerous cousin Mitsuaki (Shoichiro Tanigawa) and simple friend Sho (Tadahiro Tsuru) is depicted through a nostalgic lens, and there’s even a montage of happiness to prove the point.
The mood changes when the Tokyo family start to show their true colours, shifting the film into something of a sinister invasion piece. On a broad level, this change could be an allusion to the influence of foreigners on Japan, or even the erosion of traditional practices for modern whims. Nagayama literally brings a foot down on one such “alien” invader in a moment of grotesque bloodletting that foreshadows the film’s end.
Performances are universally excellent, although Yota Kawase is a clear standout in a terrific crowd. After seeing him in some supporting roles over the last few years (most notably The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine and The Scythian Lamb), he comfortable retakes the lead as he is alternatively affable, downtrodden, and…something else.
As the final act moves into one of the most surprising use of bongos since Matthew McConaughey, it’s fair to say that you won’t have predicted where Nagayama and co-writer Yuriko Suzuki were planning to take this one. A film that would happily sit on underground film festival programming as easily as it would any mainstream Japanese Film Festival, if this is an indicator of where Nagayama is headed as a filmmaker, then sign me up for a subscription please.
2019 | Japan | DIR: Tadashi Nagayama | WRITERS: Tadashi Nagayama, Yuriko Suzuki | CAST: Yota Kawase, Shoichiro Tanigawa, Tadahiro Tsuru, Kanji Tsuda, Natsuki Mieda | DISTRIBUTOR: Spectra Film (JPN), JAPAN CUTS (US) | RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 23 March 2019 (JPN), 19 – 28 July 2019 (JAPAN CUTS)
