Prison is to let the wrongdoers get the punishment they deserve, but also to provide them with a chance to reform. But after they are released from prison and return to society, who is willing to accept and give them the opportunity to start over?
Although there are not a few Japanese films with the theme of "the underworld", just this year in 2021, Michi Fujii and Mikazu Nishikawa filmed "Family Polar Story" and "A Beautiful World" respectively, focusing on the "survival of the modern underworld" in the big era.
The former is a history of the rise and fall of the underworld spanning 20 years, bringing out the bond between righteousness and family in the violent and masculine atmosphere;
Nishikawa Miwa's "A Beautiful World" reflects the ruthlessness of real society and the truth and falsity of dialectical good and evil through the situation of the reborn human being.
Whether it is Fujii Michito's Just Middle Belt Soft or Nishikawa Miwa's Soft Belt Belt, both films all tell the complicated relationship between the underworld and society, cut and thin.
However, in contrast to the more sensational and sympathetic "Family Extreme Story", "A Beautiful World" is like Nishikawa And the tone of the past, wandering in the gray area between morality and justice.
"A Beautiful World"
This is not the first time that Mishikawa has challenged a similar subject,
Looking back at her works over the years, whether it is "Snake Strawberry" and "Secrets on the Suspension Bridge", which depict the collapse behind the seemingly harmonious family,
Or the complex emotions between husband and wife, "The Two Who Sell Dreams" and "Long Excuses",
Or "Dear Doctor", which criticizes rural medical problems, Nishikawa's shots always touch "home", "human nature" and "death" as if they were out of nowhere.
Unlike Hirokazu Kore-eda, the protagonists in Nishikawa's stories are mostly decadent and unconscionable men.
Her "home" is to put a specific group into a big environment, depict the fragile emotions of human beings from various angles, and try to seek a sense of belonging in estranged interpersonal relationships.
Mikazu Nishikawa's films are always like "The Calm Before the Storm", without the dramatization of climaxes,
Rather, through daily life, we examine the diversity of human nature, accompanied by hope and courage, waiting for the day when the clouds will be lifted.
After watching "A Beautiful World", more than the excitement, it is more necessary to let people "quiet" reflection.
"You still have a lot of time to start over"
The film is based on Ryuzo Sagi's 1990 novel The Identity Account, based on the real murderer Yoshiaki Tamura.
In 2021, Miwa Nishikawa obtained permission to adapt the film "A Beautiful World", and the time setting was also moved from Showa to the modern Reiwa.
The film depicts former gang member Masao Mikami in prison for 13 years, and the first thing he did after he was released from prison was to find his mother, who had been separated since childhood, and on the other hand, he also wanted to find his own foothold in society again.
The identity account is a file used in prison to record the crimes and sentences of prisoners, as well as their life and attitude when they were in prison.
In the movie, the identity account is like the "outline of life" written by others for Masao Mikami, and it is the only proof that he has ever existed after he is released from prison.
The TV director Tsunada, who received the identity account, also decided to regain his dream of writing a novel because of this booklet, and wrote the story of Masao Mikami's new life.
Whether it is an identity account, a camera, or a novel written by Tsunada, the autobiography of Masao Mikami is just a variety of appearances from the perspective of a third party.
Therefore, it is entirely understandable why Miwa Nishikawa replaced the title of the original novel with "A Beautiful World".
For Masao Mikami, what is really valuable is not the matter of "living", but "living" in this world, from which to experience the beauty of "life".
But it turns out that this society is not friendly at all, and even if you have a lot of time, the discrimination of the world against the living people is far more severe than the evaluation of the "identity account".
The freedom after getting out of prison was exchanged for a world that "maybe" was not so good.
"It's better to live so facelessly than to go back to prison."
Yoji Yamada's 1977 "The Yellow Handkerchief of Happiness", which depicts a murderer who died of negligence, can still meet people who are willing to re-accept himself after he is released from prison, and such a plot has long become an overly romantic fantasy.
Japan's underworld, unlike the Japanese films of the 60s, is a combination of male scenery.
After 2006, under the Japanese government's comprehensive crackdown on organized crime, the number of underworld gangsters has been reduced from more than 80,000 to half, and a five-year rule has been formulated that even after withdrawing from the underworld, it is not allowed to open a mobile phone, open an account, or rent a house for five years.
This is also equivalent to depriving them of their right to live, even if they really want to wash their hands, social discrimination does not allow them to become real ordinary people.
Therefore, unlike the Japanese drama "The Shared House where People with Hidden Feelings Gather" and Daihachi Yoshida's "Sheep No Wood", the lens of "A Good World" is not aimed at the human choice after "when others find out that the person next to them is actually a murderer", but the disaster after the murderer is released from prison.
From the young adults who went to prison to the prime-age people who suffered from severe hypertension after being released from prison, Masao Mikami faced the ruthlessness of the hospital, the bloodlust of the TV station, the discrimination of the supermarket manager and the social worker.
All kinds of encounters also made him truly appreciate what is called "a place that will not be driven out no matter what you do, maybe only prison." ”
This film points out the most practical question: what should they rely on to survive after they get out of prison? Job search is everywhere hit a wall, can only rely on social welfare subsidies to help, is still only a rudimentary problem;
Mikazu Nishikawa directly reduces "effort" and "money" into an inequality through the "driver's license test".
Because the Japanese driver's license is notoriously difficult to take, in addition, if you want to enroll in the driving training course, you have to pay at least about NT$100,000, and social welfare can not subsidize the tuition of the driving training class.
For Masao Mikami, who wants to move forward on his own strength, take a driver's license, and find a job, he once again falls into the dead end of chickens and eggs and eggs.
"When you get out of prison, you have to endure everything, and if you endure it, no good thing will happen." But there is a wide sky outside, don't let everything become empty. ”
This film invited Noritsu Kasamatsu, who had participated in films such as "Fury", "Wicked Man", and "Blue Youth", as a photographer.
Through a large number of "frames", the film reflects the estranged relationship between Masao Mikami and the public: the film opens with heavy snow outside the window and gradually closes to the telescopic shot inside the prison inside the window.
After that, the frame composition still ubiquitously captures the helplessness of the characters shrinking into the telephone booth, the violent walking in the driving training shuttle, and the hanging gag outside the apartment window that has not been collected, all symbolizing that Even after Mikami Masao is released from prison, he is still an outsider to this "beautiful world" and cannot be integrated into it.
Beyond the frame is the sea and the sky.
When Masao Mikami finishes playing soccer with his children at the orphanage, finding a job, and receiving a call from his ex-wife, the camera finally turns to the clear sky above.
Even if society is not friendly at all, as long as he looks up, life is still full of hope, just like the "North Star" he saw in front of his eyes.
"Don't be isolated by society, you must have a connection with people"
Mikazu Nishikawa's films have always been "rejecting dichotomy", there is no absolute good guy and bad guy,
Whether it is Yukio Iguasa in "The Long Excuse" or Masao Mikami in "A Beautiful World", they are all in contact with "people", and the shortcomings that were obviously visible began to be slowly covered up by the advantages.
Compared to the little evil that Yukio Iguro did not leave a single tear after the death of his wife,
Or the unlicensed fake doctor in "Dear Doctor", but the fake doctor Inoji who heals the body, mind and soul of the whole village,
This time, Nishikawa Miwa chose to make the face of "evil" primitive.
After being born, Masao Mikami was abandoned by his mother and grew up in the underworld world, believing that only "countering violence with violence" could solve the problem, and finally died of excessive defense and negligence and was imprisoned.
But from another point of view, the reason why Masao Mikami cannot adapt to the civilization in the eyes of the world is that he is too "pure" to think about the possible complexity between right and wrong.
Therefore, as long as you see someone being bullied and doing bad things, you will desperately "start fighting".
His evil comes from primitive violence.
However, including lawyers, store managers, directors, social workers, etc., as long as they put aside discrimination and actually get along, they will eventually be affected by his pure influence and discover his advantages.
The flower language of the cosmos is "pure", but the simplicity of Masao Mikami is like the great cosmos exposed to the storm. The same is true of the colleague who works with Mikami in a nursing home and has an intellectual disability.
"Good people are bullied, is what you call a happy life?"
What is violence? What are the good guys and the bad guys?
Through several scenes of Masao Mikami facing violence and injustice, the film constantly reverses the yardstick of justice and justice in the audience's mind: not only those who have been in prison are bad people, most people are just hiding behind the camera, only criticizing and unwilling to take the initiative to solve and understand the problem.
The purer, the easier it is to be bullied, and the so-called "human nature" is just a processed product that is gradually smoothed out by human beings in the process of socialization. "A Beautiful World" is actually not cruel at all, because it is not far from reality.
Mikazu Nishikawa this time found Hiroshi to play a middle-aged prisoner, which is not only a perfect casting, but also adds a lot to the movie.
Not to mention that the rising star Nakano Taiga, a powerful newcomer who has made rapid progress in recent years, also has a remarkable performance in this film.
"A Beautiful World" challenges the audience's imagination of human nature, although the rhythm of the film is slightly flat, it still does not lose a sense of humor, and the plot and the end of the second half of the sharp turn and full of stamina are also very much in the style of Miwa Nishikawa.
There is no doubt that Miwa Nishikawa has once again handed over a superb work.
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Drama/Crime | 126 minutes | Japan | 2021
Director: Miwa Nishikawa
Writers: Mikazu Nishikawa / Ryuzo Sagi
Starring: Hiroshi Hiroshi Ryōsho
Douban 8.2 IMDb 7.2
After waiting for more than half a year, this new Japanese film did not disappoint me!