DVD Sawako Decides

3 Star

Winner of Best Director at the 53rd Blue Ribbon awards, plus Best Film and Best Actress at the Fantasia Film awards, Sawako Decides, has the potential to repeat its overseas success here, given its likeable combination of comedy and drama, a formula that can often be relied upon to bring in the crowds.

"The movie perhaps suffers a little from being slightly uneven."

Doing a job that brings her no pleasure, and being in a lacklustre relationship with a man (Masashi Endo) who knits, Sawako (Hikari Mitsushima) has seemingly good reason to wear that lifeless facial expression the way she does. Then one day, her uncle (Ryo Iwamatsu) calls, demanding that she return home immediately due to the fact that her father (Kotaro Shiga) has become ill. After some persuasion from her boyfriend, Kenichi, they leave together along with Kayoko, Kenichi’s daughter from a previous relationship.

Once there, Sawako is expected to take responsibility for her father’s clam processing business. But the real challenge for Sawako is facing her past, her family and the flaws she has within herself…

Balancing the silly with the occasionally black, the humour of Yuya Ishii’s film seldom eludes the viewer. There are points within the film that it actually achieves full hearty laughs, including the sight – and sound – of a rejuvenated Sawako leading her workforce through a rendition of her newly composed company theme. This only accounts for less than half of the movie, however, as Sawako Decides is shaded with more dramatic concerns than just quirky observation.

During the course of the film, the title Sawako Decides grows in significance, reinforcing the impression we get of the protagonist as a trapped individual and the need that exists, therefore, for her to change her predicament. We are repeatedly made aware of Sawako’s susceptibility to pressure that is placed upon the woman by other people, as well as her inability to be forthright in making her own decisions and showing her true identity. As the story unfolds, Sawako tries to alleviate these faults by accepting the challenge of heading her father’s faltering business and taking control of her personal relationships with unexpected pleasures springing from this area of her life, too.

While Sawako’s story is told well by director Ishii, who pays particular attention to the pace of his film, the movie perhaps suffers a little from being slightly uneven. This is something not helped by Mitsushima’s occasionally uneven performance as the titular character. And while the film is generally held together by its appealing tale of a young woman’s stumble to find a sense of belonging, the film holds less appeal away from the central character. In large part, this is due to the fact that some of the other characters lack definition. In addition, other elements, such as Sawako’s relationship with Kayoko, feel disappointingly under-developed.

Sawako Decides is, it must be said, a fairly safe and conventional comedy drama.

Sawako Decides is, it must be said, a fairly safe and conventional comedy drama, one that can be easily digested by a mass audience. While this is true, the film should be commended for providing a representation of Japanese society burdened by the hopelessness of the current global financial crisis. The shadow cast by the crisis is apparent most noticeably in the early scenes of the film that depict Sawako at work. When the subject arises during Sawako’s conversations with two female colleagues; it is a reminder of how even a job as mundane as Sawako’s is something to be grateful for. Rather than offering some kind of buoyancy to the young woman, though, her employment – understandably – only feeds her melancholia, explaining the considerable quantities of alcohol she consumes.

Arguably more important in the film than the financial crisis is the sense of family bonds beginning to disintegrate. Although this is not desirable in the Japanese society displayed here, the film demonstrates that enough sentiment remains in order for it to be possible to keep the family intact despite the concessions made to the shifting nature of modern life.

Part of Japanese society that the film isolates as outdated, and therefore requiring change, is its tendency towards prejudice against those who flee their home. Sawako is the victim of this, and suffers the scorn of those in her father’s factory. By presenting this intolerance to the audience, Ishii challenges the issue directly.

Terms such as ‘lightweight’ and ‘mainstream’ could easily be slapped onto Sawako Decides, but the film does manage to retain enough sincerity in its illustration of contemporary issues and other concerns in Japan to render it a more satisfying and worthwhile experience than its more pedestrian elements would suggest.