Cannes at Home: Day 2 – Of Mothers and their Children

by Cláudio Alves

The second day of Cannes saw the start of the competition screenings, with Hirokazu Kore-eda and Catherine Corsini leading the pack. Though The Film Experience's writer at the festival, Elisa Giudici, wasn't convinced by the Japanese master's latest effort, Monster has been met with critical support. Nothing comparable to the reception of his Palme d'Or-winning Shoplifters, but still encouraging. As for Corsini, her Homecoming has caused controversy because of a sex scene featuring underage actors, which the director admits she'd approach differently in the future, citing the need for intimacy coaches. A masturbation scene was also eventually cut from the film after it cost production funding from France's National Cinema Centre.

Looking back at these auteur's past works, let's choose to remember less divisive fare. In both cases, familial bonds are at the forefront, tales of mothers and their children lost in dysfunction. They are Kore-eda's Nobody Knows, and Corsini's An Impossible Love…

NOBODY KNOWS (2004) Hirokazu Kore-eda

Sweet but unsentimental, full of hope but often ready to shine a light on hopelessness, the depictions of children in Kore-eda's filmography represent one of the auteur's most foundational stones. It wasn't always like this, with the 90s representing a transition from documentary to metaphysical fiction before the dawn of a new millennial birthed the sort of cinema we're accustomed to seeing with this director's name attached. In that sense, Nobody Knows might well be the most crucial picture in his oeuvre, a point of transition and settlement, the establishing of a new order whereupon variations will exist but be seen as outlier projects.

It's a tale concentrated on a small apartment in Tokyo where a family lives their precarious existence. The mother, Keiki, is raising four children on her own, though the responsibilities of parenthood don't fit her. Moreover, the financial situation means the only way to find a place to live was to lie their way into a place where no more than one child is permitted. The film starts with the smuggling of the siblings into their new home, some hidden in suitcases, the remaining entering by other means. Forbidden from attending school or spending much time in the outside world, the kids are like a mirage to the rest of the world, who knows little of their existence. 

Only the eldest son, Akira, can move between the domestic and public spaces, assuming the role of caretaker when Keiko disappears as she's prone to do. Abandoned for months, we witness the brothers and sisters surviving, our young protagonist losing childhood innocence long before the camera discovers him. Unraveling in an observational fashion, Kore-eda's directorial grace notes are apparent wherever you look. The quotidian is full of beauty, and even pits of suffering need not be dramatized by holding on to misery. It hurts more to face reality with the ghost of a smile, frank but kind.

Like other of the artist's most famous endeavors, there's a kernel of awful truth in Nobody Knows' development. The script was inspired by a real-life story akin to how Distance and Broker came to be, with a great emphasis on actorly collaboration transforming the project until it reached its final form. Speaking of actors, the cast of Nobody Knows deserves hearty applause, with special attention paid to Yuya Yagira in the role of Akira. He remains the youngest winner of the Cannes Film Festival Best Actor prize, having received the honor when he was just 12 years old. Faced with his staggering portrayal of pre-teen fortitude, broken-hearted resilience, it's hard to disagree with the festival jury's decision.

Nobody Knows is currently streaming on AMC+, Tubi, and DirecTV. You can also rent the film on Apple iTunes.

AN IMPOSSIBLE LOVE (2018) Catherine Corsini

French novelist Christine Angot has spent most of her life as a writer exploring the possibilities of autofiction. Through fictionalized autobiography and literary confession, she has exposed painful secrets in such works as her 1999 novel L'Inceste, where a sexual relationship with her father was uncovered. An Impossible Love is almost like a twin to that shocker, reflecting upon another parental relationship, this time with Angot's mother, who raised her alone for most of her life. Its adaptation is not Angot's only foray into cinema – she has penned two Claire Denis films to date – but is her most nakedly personal story to make the leap from page to screen.

Untethering itself from the daughter's lived-in experience but still anchored by her perception, the film's shaped like the chronicle of a troubled life, that of Rachel. We meet her in the late-50s, working as a typist, when she meets the handsome Philippe, a well-traveled bourgeois with whom she starts a torrid affair. Though he seems to like the idea of having a child with Rachel, the man has no intention of marrying her, refusing to wed someone outside his class. And so, once their daughter is born, he disappears, only returning intermittently to the woman's life over the decades. As their daughter grows, the gulfs of disconnection only become more pronounced.

The troubles of single motherhood are expected, but the father's disinterest in acknowledging his child proves a point of much strife. Skipping over years in the space of a simple cut, An Impossible Love feels small and huge in scope, moving swiftly through life while creating a complicated portrait of personhood. The narration, at first, is like a crutch but soon serves to impose a subjectivity to the exercise. In its blunt words, we find a tension underlying everything seen, the attempt of a daughter to know a mother she never entirely understood, who she pushed away and hurt time and time again.

If that attempt fails, it's more to the film's benefit than its outright detriment. While admitting it doesn't always work, there's value in the mystery of Rachel, in the subtle suggestion of alienation echoing through even the sincerest melodrama. Corsini's choices, ranging from surrendering to the eroticism of sex to odd stylings when aging her characters, make An Impossible Love feel like a constant wavering motion. It oscillates between open sentiment and something more closed-off, biting, and dangerous. The key to success, however, is Virginie Efira's performance in the lead, modulating our imperfect access to Rachel's interiority. Slippery, she allows us to see and be blind simultaneously.

An Impossible Love is streaming on VUDU Free, Tubi, Kanopy, and Chai Flicks. You can also rent it on Amazon Prime Video and Kino Now.

Are you a fan of either Kore-eda or Corsini? If so, what are your favorite films from their catalog?

Comments

[thevoid99]

Nobody Knows is a masterpiece. The first film by Koreeda that I have ever seen and I fucking love it.