Still Walking, the film by Hirokazu Kore-eda

Hirokazu Kore-eda and his perfect direction give us emotions and suggestions, aided by a delicate return home

In Yokohama, it is summer, a family gathers to commemorate the death of Junpei, the eldest son who disappeared under tragic circumstances twelve years earlier. The father is a retired doctor, the mother a housewife, and the children are respectively married, she to a car salesman and he to a widow. The title in Japanese, Aruitemo aruitemo, means walking, walking. Through the past with all its residues, its indelible traces that seem never to fade. The house looks the same, consistent and maddeningly intact, charming and crystallized. But Pandora’s box contains everything and without discounts and unnecessary sentimentality presents the bill. Like it or not, everyone’s choices are recognized but not found again, and ancient contrasts resurface, without the apparent desire to overturn the paradigm. The fascinating metric of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s camera not only walks through time but perfectly captures its essence and all its nuances. Through all the transience that accompanies it, without attempts to escape from fragility. With the nature of its essence, the family reunion becomes the wavering ornament to tell of still open wounds, ghosts, and never-suppressed nostalgia.