I first erased the real time and fully accepted Hirokazu Koreeda's schedule. Then I imagined myself as a climbing ivy, climbing very slowly season by season. Gradually, Koreeda's camera, with consistent precision and calmness, guided my tentacles, infiltrating this forgotten and unknown little world.
This is a tragedy triggered by the abandonment of the weak. The initiator was the mother, a woman whose face had already shown signs of aging. Although she had experienced the bitterness and absurdity of life, her psychological age remained immature. Like playing a game, she brought up her four children from different fathers. Her attitude towards life was too light-hearted, so her life seemed unreal. She had not intended, nor would she ever intend, to bear the weight of life's reality as an adult. The bond that sustains a family was broken. Because of the confusion and absence of roles between guardian and ward, the children were destined to be thrown into the turbulent currents of society, to fend for themselves.
But the mother was also an abandoned person. Her departure was just an imitation of the repeated departures of men. Because the rights and obligations of promises had never been fulfilled, these two crucial elements of life construction vanished. In this woman's world, her own life had always been rolling in the mud, so she had become numb to dirtiness and hardship. "Anyway, we won't die, we'll survive somehow." This should be the most honest thing the mother said to her children in her heart.
"Do I not have the right to be happy?" When she asked her underage son with a voice full of grievance and affectation, she had already decided without hesitation to end her exile by exiling her children.
Behind her, there was a small boat without walls, without a roof, naked in the vast wilderness. People came and went around, but they all ignored it. The four children were thus abandoned in the crowd.
But their exile in the crowd had already begun before the mother left, perhaps from the moment they were born. The dark suitcase; the deserted staircase; the toy dropped on the balcony that no one dared to pick up; the longing for school; one after another tangible and intangible cages imprisoned the children. The imprisonment of the body is the exile of the spirit. Fortunately, they were not yet at an age of constant distress, except for the two slightly older children.
The time of the whole film flows very smoothly and compactly, almost without pause. After the boy hangs up the phone on his mother, I was curious to observe the boy's expression or any other possible body language that could reveal his feelings. But the director didn't provide any close-ups, easily passing up the opportunity to ferment emotions. I think he was trying to keep the film as calm and composed as possible. He tells us through uninterrupted time that life is like this and won't slow down because of sadness.
But I noticed two times that were exaggeratedly slowed down or even stopped. One was when the older brother took his sister to meet their mother and saw a passing train on their way back. After the older brother said, "In the future, I will definitely take my sister on a train to see planes," only the older brother's face and the long light of the train remained in the frame. The light seemed like a huge insect, coming from various directions, illuminating the boy's face time and time again. This was a moment when dreams existed in reality. At this moment, although the children were lonely and felt their mother's distance, they were still waiting for her return. The family had not yet fallen apart, so life was still capable of bearing a beautiful dream. This dream lingered in the boy's heart, illuminating his difficulties. Determined to seize this dream, time slowed down when he yearned for it. The train came from afar time and time again, representing light and hope in the darkness of night.
Another moment of stopped time was when the older brother ran wildly in the street. After refusing money from friends obtained through socializing, he ran in the street for the first time like an adult — although he had been living like an adult for a long time. This was the moment when dreams collided head-on with reality. The result was that the dream shattered. The street was bustling, but the sound of running footsteps was particularly clear amidst the various noises, pounding on this world. These sounds seemed to accuse, seemed to weep, and that running seemed to have no end.
This film also lacks music, like life without music. But whenever music appears, it is cheerful. The first long piece of music appears when the children go out together for the first time in their lives. Their mother was already missing, but the children who stepped out of their cage enjoyed unprecedented relief and joy. This was a concentrated flash of vitality. Before or after this moment, the radiance of vitality was never so dazzling and vigorous.
Hirokazu Koreeda is also a master of using details to show the passage of time. Without any words, only some silently changing objective phenomena remind us: time is passing. For example, gradually disheveled hair, worn-out chalk, faded nail polish, damaged piano, dirty clothes. Time passes in this way and also hints at the direction of the story: the once innocent and now crisis-ridden sibling relationship, the fragile family on the verge of collapse, inevitably becoming beggars. These silent details are like spells, making all innocence and fleeting happiness more painful. But faced with these ominous prophecies, the director's camera is so calm. He draws this pain and sighs into imperceptible threads, slowly entwining the audience's heart.
The children picked up a handful of seeds on the roadside, and those seeds were themselves. They could have withered early in the unshaded streets where no one cared. But they struggled instinctively to survive, regardless of the odds, regardless of when they would become part of the soil.
Hirokazu Koreeda beautified the more cruel reality of that true story. In reality, this world withered early in an ugly and decadent way: the eldest son finally failed to resist the temptation of evil, killed one of his sisters with his own hands, and was sent to a juvenile correctional facility as a result. Another surviving girl was on the verge of death due to hunger, and the second son left only a cold body for those who found him.
But I thank the director. He injected vitality into the ugly reality, weak but stubborn vitality. He injected an ever-flowing life and hope. Without this vitality, "Nobody Knows" would become another "A Clockwork Orange". There would be no beauty, no emotion, no hope, only ugliness, disgust, and despair. These are two different ways of exposing ugliness: one is to touch people with damaged beauty, and the other is to whip people's hearts with naked evil. There is no superiority between the two, but I prefer the former. Because I wouldn't eat a fly just because I wonder if it tastes bad. Of course, brave people would do so. I lack the courage.
The end of the film best embodies the director's philosophy. The silhouette of backlight on the grass, the strands of hair trembling slightly, a beautiful picture. But the beautiful picture conveys helpless pain. I no longer saw the familiar child with a gaze full of strength and maturity; now, he only had coldness and despair in his eyes, like a wandering little beast. His sister
, like a street flower, was buried in the dark soil. And what about him and the other children? The song has told us: the sky is dark, the lake is dark.
There is a kind of growing up called death. Even if the director hopes that this small, humble life will blend into the surging life, dilute its bitterness with endless ordinary years, and refine its tenacity. We also know that life is not so merciful.
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