Kikujiro

When we express our thought in words, the medium is not found easily. There must be a process of translation, which is often inexact, and then we fall into error. But eyes need no translating; the mind itself throws a shadow upon them.

- Extracted from ‘Dark Waters’.

Film: Kikujiro (Kikujirō no Natsu)

Director: Takeshi Kitano

Genre: Family/Drama     

Language: Japanese                                                                                     

If This Was Real: Life of a child is as magical as the sudden stroke of pink in the sky just after the rain, which fades within the blueness making it dissolve like a muddy hare lying in the sand.  Those were the gloomy afternoons, where he played in his mayo colored sneakers, splashing water, kicking musk melons, nodding warmly at the miserable beggars and making friends with the roadside pups hopping helter-skelter. This playtime hour breaks when the angel’s bell chimes through the forest. As it turns dark, the sky starts pouring right across the ocean like shallow-painted sea gulls. The mellow light of life with pretty wings and the babe blue angel gets him back in his bed, putting him back to sleep. It is hard to believe, yet beautiful to imagine, sighing if this was real.

This is real: Even a tiny crib is filled up with lots of golden fishes, but something still goes missing. The dark side of the past tickles him inside, burning down the tears : a crave to play with friends of the batch, a swift caress of an angelic mommy , the easy-to-climb shoulders of royal daddy and a small window that used to be his Sun, beaming life each morning!

One little boy Masao (Yusuke Sekiguchi) chubby cheeks, raw eyes, buttoned nose walks the heavy road back from the school, fearing the summer vacation that starts tomorrow. The passers exclaim at his intensity, the neighbors sigh to his fate. He squeaks in weak cheer for the friends who are heading off for a beach vacation with their parents, restores his calm walk to the old granny’s archaic style care and a sudden desire to catch the glimpse of mother, the lady he’s never met. 

Masao lost his father when he very young, with very few memories of him, while his mother played an invisible character in an unknown land far-far away. The obliged kid is a gentleman to the granny, ill-fatedly left alone by her mother so that she can make a living. The vigor in the child’s eyes is agonizing and his vision here kinda gets me a feel of detrainment, whether to balance or fall on the tracks of hostile luck, or to be betrayed by the loved ones, what Masao apparently defines throughout the film. The piano raiding is warm and touchy across the film, as Masao has his own silent conversation through his body and soul. The shrills of the boy are barely examined, the street boys guard everywhere to mug his capital, however a neighborhood couple killing a way long dog-cat fight, arguing the augmentation of numerous husbands applied to each of their mothers, are still good enough to realize the boy’s intentions. A dominating wife, though with positive energy, sends her crook husband (Takeshi Kitano), to help the boy find his mother. A Mister and the boy, with a pocket full of money and random fantasies, walk together to beat the vacation. The Mister has his money making races while the boy, weaves his characters, naming them each. The sad and the funny versions keep over routing the paths of mischievous phase between the two.

The Mister and the boy, Equals to Kikujiro and Masao, are two inexplicit definitions to life where the mister speaks, boy too, mister nods, boy has neither inventions. The careless Kikujiro is a frantically funny and irritating character to begin with. As he startles the by passers with hysteric rudeness, including the boy, he loses all funds in the race. The little one’s silent breathtaking disrupts him as Kikujiro eventually, grabs the boy’s capital money and asks him to guess the numbers. Bingo, the man is already convinced. The super funny Kikujiro has a cocky idea, as he bribes the boy to guess the numbers on and on, till they loose everything again. It’s far more than what appears again. The boy was doing well at the same time missing precious moments to see his mother. Kikujiro isn’t a bad man; he’s just a liar, an illiterate diver (app. Land and water), rude bloke breaking window shields of those who refuse a ride, cackling and guffawing in his own natural manner, attempting to keep the boy out of troubles, and eventually failing.                                                            

The canvassing of characters in Masao’s life is very similar to the ones described in fairy tales. Or say, the kid has narrated them so realistically through his picture book to bring all those toys back to life. There is a scary man, shiny head light moustache. Octopus, water melon, alien, the old castles witch, tree demons, black panda and the porcelain blue angel. The tears shimmer like a silver pond, diving and hiding the grunts of lil Masao. The lives revolving around him play hide n seek, waves of emotions come gushing in block the way from others was kinda pretty. The slink traveler, the charming pair of fatso and baldy, and mushy Kikujiro plays toys to him, ‘for the kid’s sake’. The journey of Kikujiro and Masao, consciously or unconsciously keeps moving till both of them come to a moment, in common. When they say, ‘He’s just like me.’

 

The soft moments between the two were mossy enough to slip even the devil’s soul. It all ends with realization, lovingness, heavy memories, little desires, porcelain dreams, the kicking and screaming, stealing Turkish delights and holding silence to hear the chiming train whistling far in the east, when you get down on knees to make a pray of life, live a life or make a life.