Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Joe Odagari
Starring: Akira Emoto, Ririka Kawashima, Nijiro Murakami, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Jun
Marakami, Yu Aoi
Researching Joe Odagiri, writer/director of the superlative Meiji
era set They Say Nothing Stays the Same, I was rendered nonplussed as I scrolled down past acting credit after
acting credit (an all-inclusive thespian CV of Japanese film and telly)
until, finally, uncovering a few behind the camera credits at the bottom
of the imdb page. There’s a de rigueur short, an extended mini, and then,
like a hard-won lifelong impression at the end of the tabi,
They Say Nothing Stays the Same, Odagiri’s full length auteurial debut. Locating this information after
watching They Say Nothing Stays the Same, is startling for several reasons. Firstly, the film itself, which
focuses on a ferryman who is soon to be rendered purposeless following the
construction of a bridge, is an extremely accomplished debut, the sort of
deeply felt and obstinately ponderous movie which seems to rarely be the
initial choice for an actor turned director. Moreover, for a film made by
someone with 96 acting credits,
They Say Nothing Stays the Same is decisively a film where
performance is secondary; the actors simply providing functional threads
which serve to weave the abiding transcendental experience of mood, vision
and hypnotic imagery together.
Odagiri sets his film in the breath-taking location of river bend
(pinpointing this shooting location has proved fruitless - which is
probably for the best as I may well have upped sticks to live there
myself). His peasant protagonist Toichi (Akira Emoto) transports
people, livestock and other cargo across the water, and lives in a shack
near the shore. Toichi is entwined with his surroundings, the deep
tributary which flows unhindered and will continue to swell and surge when
Toichi, and the rest of us, are long gone; as a character admonishes,
"useless things disappear." Hence, there is noise around the corner from a
bridge being built, an inevitable result of progress in turn of the
century Japan.
Toichi, though, is more concerned with the presence of a girl (Ririka Kawashima), whom he rescued from the river following a mystery altercation: the
girl is half drowned, has cuts and bruises but no memory of who she is.
Sheltering, kind Toichi treats her with quiet wonder, and patience,
demonstrating the very qualities which are necessary to experiencing the
narrative which ensues (which, yes, meanders majestically like that very
river).
Plot does not punt this ship, however. "Quiet, but very humane," Toichi is
an unconcealed metaphor, a weather worn device for exploring the film’s
abstract themes of time, mortality and fear. The Stygian connotations of
this ferryman’s situation are consolidated by the ethereal presence of the
girl, who, unnamed, refers to all that is new and youthful and dangerous:
a liminal figure that, had she not been saved by Toichi, perhaps would
have perished according to the cosmic ordering of the natural universe.
This latter phenomena, the film’s true subject, is abundantly evident in
the gorgeous, capacious framework of DP Christopher Doyle. Each
verdant frame has the prized value of uncut jade, with characters
overwhelmed by the fecund and potentially supernatural power of their
surroundings.
What prevents They Say Nothing Stays the Same from absolute
perfection is the final reel, wherein this gorgeous green ghost story,
which, in the true tradition of the Yūrei form, has previously trafficked
in intense emotion and unsettling awe, transposes a hurried storyline onto
its sublime and sensational spectacles. Is the violence and jeopardy of
the final act a misjudged level of further meaning, that everything must
pass, even the spooky calm of this rural tenure? Or is it simply a
necessary way of ending a film which could, with its elemental power and
infinite beauty, have otherwise flowed on forever? In the grand vista of
They Say Nothing Stays the Same (and it is grand) such a
quibble seems churlish. Let its currents pull you away.
They Say Nothing Stays the Same is
in US cinemas and VOD from November 12th. A UK/ROI release has yet to be
announced.
