Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Miiku Sakanishi
Starring: Tasuku Emoto, Issey Ogata, Moeka Hoshi
The other night I was watching a World Cup game featuring Portugal and their past-his-prime striker Cristiano Ronaldo. When Portugal won a free kick and Ronaldo lined up to have a shot at goal, almost every man, woman and child in the crowd whipped out their phones to record the moment for posterity. There are two ways to view such an action. You can either empathise with the desire to capture a key moment in your life or you can view it as an inability to live in the moment. I'm not quite sure where I stand. Personally, I wouldn't have felt the compulsion to record such a moment (being aware of Ronaldo's terrible record at free kicks might play a part in such a decision) because I would prefer to experience it with my own eyes rather than watching it on a tiny screen in my hand. But on the other hand I've witnessed the joy on elderly family members' faces as they look through old photo albums and their memories are triggered.
With his feature debut Memorizu, writer/director Miiku Sakanishi wrestles with this question of whether recordings can replace memories. The movie is centred on two men: one is a professional photographer whose job it is to take images, to record precious moments for his paying customers; the other an amateur who insists on snapping a photo or video on his phone of everything from his daughter at play to the food on his plate. The images the former creates are largely false, posed just so as to make for an appealing photo album that can be pored over later in life. Those of the latter are more raw and spontaneous. Which images have the most value?
Injured after taking a fall, elderly photographer Makoto (Issey Ogata) is lumbered with crutches for a period of several weeks. To help him run his business during this time he is joined by his son-in-law Yuta (Tasuku Emoto). The two men are initially awkward around each other, Yuta's presence making the proud Makoto feel emasculated, and there is a lot of uncomfortable silence. But as the two men warm up to each other, the silences remain, but it is a silence of contentment and respect that doesn't need to be broken by words.
Yuta spends his days running errands for Makoto, walking his adorable dog at the same time. In this quiet rural setting he finds himself taking in the sort of details he probably wouldn't have noticed in the city: a farmer tending to his horse in a far off field; a woman who cycles past him at the same time every day; a neighbour's leaf blower; the melody of a piano piece wafting through the window of a home. One day Yuta goes for a walk and is unsettled by the sudden absence of such details. He had found contentment in certainty, security in routine, magic in the mundane. Yuta captured those details in still photos and videos, so they they might live on through the phone in his pocket. He stops and plays the tune that has now fallen silent via the recording he made on his phone, hoping to recreate the mood, and the look on his face suggests it brings him some comfort. But does he actually remember the real details, and even if he doesn't, isn't it enough that he remembers the feelings they evoked?
Memorizu made me think about how cinema has been able to capture sights and sounds, but it can't replicate touch, taste and smell. Isn't it curious that those are the very same senses that our memories can't reproduce either? We can't actually remember the smell and taste of a great meal, or the touch of a past lover's hand, but we remember the feelings they evoked. Would those feelings be somehow corrupted if we had the ability to record touch, taste and smell? Can you imagine if we started whipping out our phones whenever we snog a stranger so we can relive the moment later? It's hard to imagine anything crasser.
But Memorizu makes the case for the value of the spontaneous capturing of moments when Makoto's daughter and Yuta's wife Yuki (Moeka Hoshi) regretfully announces that she can no longer recall her late mother's voice. Makoto reveals that he has kept a voicemail she left on his phone just before she passed. Hearing the message, Yuki is deeply moved, feeling her mother is with her once again. But the moment is interrupted if not ruined by the click of Yuta's camera. The voicemail left by Makoto's wife represents a genuine capturing of an everyday moment that will now forever hold great emotional meaning. Will the picture Yuta took of his wife in that moment ever hold the same value?
Memorizu wold premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Release details have yet to be announced.
