Memories Of Matsuko

Director: Tetsuya Nakashima
Country: Japan
Date: 2006
Runtime: 2 hours and 10 minutes
Format: .avi and with .sub English subtitles

I've been going through my film and animated film posts and I noticed a pattern which is: most of them are either:

a) depressive as fvck
b) melancholic as fvck

I guess I like those the best. But! There's still hope! I might like some movies that present the other spectrum of emotions. Emotions like physical abuse, drug abuse, torture and, uhh, happiness? I heard of that somewhere, people even make movies about it. About happiness. Why don't I check a movie out that's happy? I looked around and this is what I ended up liking. But the problem is that despite the really colorful tones and delightful merry characters this is depressing as fvck. So we're back to square one. Eh, who gives a fuck anyway.

Memories of Matsuko is a story about a guy who has an aunt called Matsuko. He doesn't know very much about her but she died and he has to clean her apartment and crap like that. Through this cleaning he gets to know her aunt and how she lived through her life. He slowly but gradually pieces together her painful life into one big mosaic. So the story is actually focused around Matsuko but from the perspective of memories and interpretations by other characters. This is what generally makes the movie work and it works well for the most part. Since they are memories the scenes and events are highly stylized which gives a lot of room for social commentary and general Japanese weirdness. You know, the usual things they do.


The problem with all this is when the movie does something bad it gets really awkward and ruins the immersion of the story. Some of the singing musical bits were tedious for me to watch. But that's maybe because I don't like singing in movies. Because this doesn't happen that much often it kinda magnifies the effect when it does happen so it makes it that much worse. Aside from that there's really not that much to complain about. The acting is fairly good but it's still in that kinda strange Japanese way of acting. I'm not sure I can pinpoint what's so strange about it. It's just different.


Overall this is a very nice long film. It's not perfect and it might not click with you due to the over the top stylizing and you might miss some jokes/things if you're not that familiar with the culture. But those points should not ruin the whole film. Not in the least. In it's core the story is very universal.

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