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Most people who have read "Fools" will have obvious praise and criticism. Or admire its depiction of human nature and the darkness of society, or think that this is just another empty and symbolic work.
Indeed, films that expose Japanese social and moral problems with crime stories have been launched at a steady pace, and the "Wicked Man", "Fury", and "Fool's Tale" starring Satoshi Mufu alone can be connected into a trilogy, while Kosei Ishizu is Kore-eda who has begun to make "The Third Killing".
As a unique category in Japan, social reasoning has been filmed and television in recent years, especially since Tetsuya Nakajima's "Confession", which has slowly formed some characteristics of typification: repressive tone and serious social topics, exposure to the evil of human nature, the pursuit of depth, cruelty, and shock... So that it is easy to be vulgar, reduced to a social focus of the hodgepodge, full of blood plasma curiosity or forced touching curiosity.
Among them, Minato Yoshina's adaptations ("Confession", "Snow White Murders", etc.) are mixed, Miyuki Miyabe's "Solomon's Perjury" has a calm visual style but a poor narrative, and The works of Shuichi Yoshida and director Lee Sang-il ("Evil Man", "Fury") aim at grand themes and win a lot of awards.
The author of "Fool's Tales", Tokuro Kanai, is very young to them, which is also his first cinematic work.
"The Book of Fools" roughly follows the group portrait style of this type of work, but it is strung together by two main lines: a happy family of men and women who are from ordinary families who are trying to climb up, and the other is a brother and sister who have been abused by their fathers since childhood.
The older brother played by his wife, Satoshi Mu, acts as a tabloid reporter and draws out the stories behind many of the characters by visiting and investigating the characters related to the massacre of the elite family.
This makes the work have a master and a secondary, although it still involves many characters and social aspects, but there is no sense of juxtaposition of the hot headlines of many similar works.
Instead, The Fool has a clear theme, a taboo word that has been alluded to but never uttered in more and more recent works: class.
Although 2015's "Trailer" features Japanese low-income laborers and migrant workers, it ends with only "touching" personal heroism and warmth.
"Trailer"
2016's "Tokyo Women's Picture Book" tells the story of climbing upwards everywhere, but ultimately ends with a discussion of the city, desire, and life's pursuits.
Tokyo Women's Illustrated Book
But in "The Book of Fools", from the daughter of the former company owner who fell into the middle and lower classes, this sentence is said:
"Japan is not a poor society, but a class society."
50 years ago, with the economic take-off, Japanese society had a consciousness of "100 million total middle class (middle class)", tacitly acquiescing that all citizens only had differences in degree ("differences in ranks") and no class differences. After 50 years, the signs of class differentiation and class solidification are becoming more and more obvious, but until the "Record of Foolish Behavior", no one has unveiled the emperor's new clothes.
Most of the works of the same kind, for the sake of literary creation, will lead the theme to the criticism of human nature, and even such as Shuichi Yoshida and Lee Sang-il, combined with moral concepts such as "good and evil", "anger", "trust" as keywords, and the films often use exaggerated and exposed performances. But "Fool's Tales" is extremely restrained and calm, both in terms of plot and film techniques.
"Stupidity" happens to have nothing to do with the good or bad of human nature, but like the word "stupid", it is a worm-like squirming, a survival instinct that struggles to climb upwards.
In the story, the woman of the elite family comes from an ordinary family, but by appearance and careful effort, she becomes the only person who has mixed into the "internal" circle of the elite university. But in essence, she is playing the role of a plaything for these future social elites in Japan.
The naïve men and women who want to blend into this closed upper class are all squeezed dry, and then abandoned and fall into the bottom of society.
In 2003, waseda University, the author's alma mater, broke the news that members of a social club had repeatedly drunk female members and committed gang rape, and had led to a number of "famous universities".
The first story of the film says that the company recruits female employees to look at their looks, and the orientation meeting is a blind date, which actually reflects that this structure exists at all stages of society - both class criticism and feminist criticism.
The man, on the other hand, goes to Beijing from the local government, and in order to rise in society, he does not hesitate to use everything such as feelings as tools. The "Mountaineering Department" he attended in college is an allusion to this ambition. At the same time, he is extremely honest with himself and others, and does not hide his desires, which highlights his simplicity from the bottom.
Ironically, two men and women who want to enter the upper class end up marrying each other, living in middle-class houses on the outskirts, and being killed by people who have fallen into the bottom. The upper layer is not only impenetrable, but also unscathed.
The elite male actor Keisuke Koide graduated from The Elite University of Ying keung, an elite institution alluded to in the film's "Bunying University". The description of Wenying students in the work (empty, only wanting to live an easy life, needing foreign objects to prove their worth...) It is precisely the evaluation of students in the society.
What is even more ironic is that during the release of the movie, Koide was arrested after being revealed to have a relationship with an underage girl. Such a work that directly reflects reality is penetrated by reality itself.
The other figures in the group portrait are all losers gathered outside the Kafka-like castle of the elite on the top floor, and they fail to squeeze in, or they are squeezed out, or they withdraw in time. Only the family shadow plot of the brother and sister line seems to be somewhat vulgar, like a vulgar imitation of "White Night".
The film is also the debut of director Kei Ishikawa. He graduated from the Polish State Film Academy, the alma mater of Polanski, Kieslowski and other film masters, and the director of photography was also Polish. The work is full of the restraint and indifference of Eastern European films, reminiscent of "Killing Short Film" and "Four Nights with Anna", which are rare in Japanese films that emphasize "touching".
Details such as cold arms in the dark, and the lens breaking through the glass wall of the visiting room are quite artistic. Many of the hints and foreshadowings in the film also need to be re-watched to be discovered.
At the same time, Satoshi's cold and despicable performance throughout his wife, Satoshi Mu, and Hikaru Manjima's last monologue on the air are very exciting. Unlike many social criticism films that are reduced to exaggerated and clichéd emotional dramas (melodrama), "Fool's Tales" maintains an accurate analysis of reality and a high degree of self-control in narrative.
In comparison, the excitement of the reversal or the shaping of the character is not the focus.