There be Wails Here
Izuru Narushima’s adaptation of Sonoko Machida’s novel is an awful lot of movie, even by Japanese melodrama standards.
52-Hertz Whales
Director: Izuru Narushima • Writer: Yukari Tatsui, based on the novel by Sonoko Machida
Starring: Hana Sugisaki, Tori Kuwana, Jun Shison, Karin Ono, Hio Miyazawa
Japan • 2hrs 15mins
Opens Hong Kong June 6 • IIA
Grade: B-
Turns out director Izuru Narushima’s Father Of The Milky Way Railroad was the ideal training (sorry) ground in which he could perfect the High Drama of 52-Hertz Whales | 52ヘルツのクジラたち. Even by the heightened emotional standards of the romantic melodrama the Japanese industry seems hell bent on perfecting, Whales is a shit ton of movie. Narushima deploys the requisite flashbacks and soft focus (the Vaseline budget has to be through the roof) to tell a tale of broken people and busted love, but he doesn’t stop there, piling on egregious “twists”, moustache-twirling abusive husbands, gawdawful parenting – there’s three! – retired sex workers and endangered species just for the hell of it (I’ll admit to having zero clue as to whether this is faithful to Sonoko Machida’s source material).
If that sounds like a lot it’s because it is. But there’s always been an audience for a good cry and some phoenix-like resilience in an underdog character. Those audiences are in for heaping doses of both in 52-Hertz Whales, which despite its overwrought storytelling – and way, way, way too many “issues” to contend with – is a considerably stronger film, and a better paced one, than what’s hit screens lately, with a refreshing lack of problematic relationships. Detractors gonna detract (me), but if augmented emotional reality is your bag, grab the tissues and tuck in.
This is Act I!
The film takes its title from the Pacific phenomena in which a single breed of (never actually seen) whale (nicknamed 52 Blue) sings at a pitch no other whale can hear. This evolutionary idiot is the metaphor for the lonely, misunderstood, voiceless souls living in mid-sized coastal Oita, each of which is trying desperately to make some sort of meaningful connection with someone else. The action begins with Kiko (Hana Sugisaki, Ten Years Japan, The Great Yokai War: Guardians) sitting on the dock, chatting with Ango (Jun Shison, Fortuna’s Eye), who it would appear is the love of her life. It’s all very gauzy, and she finishes the conversation with an ominous “Why did you leave me?” Uh-oh. You know what that means. No, really. You totally do.
Kiko has some kind of debilitating spasm on her way home, and she’s rescued from the rain by a boy (surprisingly effective newcomer Tori Kuwana), and when she sees the angry bruises all over him, she takes an interest in protecting him from his slutty (they’re always slutty), negligent, one-note mother Kotomi (Nanase Nishino). She wants to be the supportive friend that Ango and his co-worker Miharu (Karin Ono) were when, years before, she was covered in angry bruises left by her own abusive – and manipulative – mother Yuki (Sei Matobu), and later when she fell in with a rich cad of a boyfriend, Niina (Hio Miyazawa, Egoist). This doesn’t even begin to get into 52-Hertz Whales’ considerable narrative weeds.
52-Hertz Whales core ideas of how desperately we sometimes need to communicate with others, and how important it can be to find and make those connections at various stages of life isn’t without merit. Kiko’s reflexive attachment to the boy, who we eventually learn is Ai, is believable; her patience with his skittishness understandable. And Sugisaki and Kuwana – who has an affecting stillness to him that can be heartbreaking – have a nice dynamic that dances around cautious and hopeful and works for the story. That’s in the present, and the parallel with the past is in Ango, Miharu and Kiko’s bond. Like I said: didn’t read the book. But had Narushima and scripter Yukari Tatsui shaved off many of the gratuitous elements that added nothing to the screen story – though they may have on the page – they might have been onto something truly astute. As it stands, a flurry of death and identity curveballs muddy the waters and dilute the central story’s power. When you start giggling at Kiko’s over-excited head bandage – for four stitches, y’all – you know your mind is wandering. Veteran actors Kimiko Yo (Departures, Villain) and Mitsuko Baisho (Ballad of Narayama, Out) as Ango’s mother Noriko and neighbourhood elder stateswoman Sachie, respectively, go a long way to classing up the joint, but 52-Hertz Whales only needs them to grab the attention of those who remain stone-faced in the wake of the rest of the dramatics – or just can’t get past that head wound. — DEK