If
I had to choose one word to describe Still
Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2008)
, it would be familiar.
Kore-eda
started his career as a documentary film maker and even when shooting
feature films, he always referred to the topics and cinematographic
techniques characteristic of documentaries.
Things
change with Still Walking.
The Japanese author decides to leave behind what he mastered for
something completely new.
He forgets about the objectivity of factual stories and chooses to
get personal.
Still
Walking is a tale about the private life of a family, and
Kore-eda uses his own childhood memories to build up a subjective
film.
The
result is outstanding. He is so accurate and brilliant in translating
into images the specific founding feelings, mementos, colours,
sounds, impressions and thoughts of his everyday life as a child,
that this private life of this fictional family becomes universal.
Still Walking infers general principles from specific facts
and, consequently, it seems to portray our own memories on-screen.
That is why this film feels familiar.
If
you add to that the fact that Kore-eda, adored by film critics and
public, is one of the greatest contemporary directors who just won
the Jury Prize (with Like Father, Like Son)
at this year's Cannes Film Festival, you'll understand why Still
Walking is a film you wish it
never ended.
