Film Review – Bright Future (Akarui Mirai)
May 21, 2008 in asian film, film reviews, japanese film
Title: Bright Future (aka Akarui Mirai)
Director: Kurosawa Kiyoshi
Year: 2003
Genre: Drama
Format Reviewed: TV (Sundance Channel)
Is there no wrong that Kiyoshi Kurosawa can do? Certainly there has to be one movie in his past that doesn’t live up to the hype. Or so I thought going back to this lesser praised (but still praised) work. In the Kurosawa filmography, Bright Future is placed between Kairo (I’ve seen) and Doppleganger (haven’t seen). It’s fun to watch an auteur like Kiyoshi, because you can see different sides of the same world that his mind must work in. Clearly Bright Future builds upon the social loneliness and meaninglessness of life, or so is felt by the main characters, that is present in his other movies, but it is not quite as polished or apocalyptic as Kairo. But since I view Kairo as possibly the best horror movie ever… I won’t judge it solely on it being worse than that!
Indeed, I like Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s movies because they have a distinct realism of everyday life and a purposeful silence in conversation; a point where Bright Future excels. The protagonist is as well-rounded as you’re going to get from a Kurosawa film. That is to say that he doesn’t often work very hard to show background in his characters, or many of their motivations, and at least you see a few different sides of Nimura. Some other classic techniques of Kiyoshi present include the normal moving and looking post-death ghost, on screen in the first shot and invisible in the second. Suicide and general illegal activity is portrayed as the end result of being pushed into some limit by one’s situation, as well.
So what makes it different than a typical Kiyoshi film (if there were such a thing)? Well, for one, the ending. I feel that the ending is really quite satisfying compared to others that he has done. It kind of takes the feelings from throughout the movie and puts them aside… releasing your thoughts onto present life rather than pounding remorse or loneliness into the viewer, as I’ve found Kurosawa to do sometimes. I suppose Bright Future lives up to its name then, as it does seem to give hope in a world without any. And while it’s not as clear as the messages in his other films, he seems to provide some solutions for society, rather than just the cause of despair.
Rating: 4 /5
cultural note: there is a visual reference to the Japanese Obon festival in this movie. If you don’t know what that is… look it up first!
