Memories of Matsuko (2011)

Original title Kiraware Matsuko No Issho

Director Tetsuya Nakashima

Applying the tartrazine-fuelled pop-cultural aesthetics of Japanese TV to the overblown narratives of the Depression-era Hollywood weepie sounds like a dreadful idea on paper, a recipe for glitzy postmodern style-over-substance. Which only serves to make Memories of Matsuko all the more astounding: yes, it’s vibrantly, often toe curlingly bright. But it’s also astoundingly inventive, crammed with ideas and emotional truth, high on the possibilities of cinema. The central device is magnificently simple: slacker student Shou is asked to clear out his mysterious recently deceased aunt Matsuko’s apartment and in the process travels back through the five decades of her wild and tragic life. Every stage of the journey is differently designed but the whole is expertly tied together by Shou’s quest for a deeper understanding of his family, and his own humanity. And this is Nakashima’s most impressive achievement – for all its stylistic intensity and dizzying narrative overdrive, this is a profoundly compassionate, humanist work. IN surprisingly sober fashion, the film covers arrays of vital issues, from the mistreatment of women in Japanese society to the emptiness of celebrity obsession, from the trap of brutal relationships to the inescapable agonising truth that those most open to the world are also those most likely to be crushed by it. Tom Huddleston, Time Out