Acclaimed movie Dare mo shiranai (Nobody Knows, 2004) and related featurettes on the DVD from my Tokyo acquisition earlier this year, easily proved to be well worthy of my prolonged attention.
Though slow-moving and long (almost 2.5 hours), one never gets bored watching four kids (in the movie of the age of 4, 6, 10 and 12 years) trying to survive on their own. Kids are kawaii (cute) and their performances touching, while bringing to life a bittersweet story of abandoned children. Trying to avoid attention from authorities and subsequent institutionalisation or imposed guardianship, inevitably leading to their separation, they are concealing the fact from their landlords and neighbours, continuing to live alone and thus staying together, sadly, with an almost unsurprisingly tragic outcome.
Indeed a powerful story, based on real events. Unfortunately, as found on the free on-line encyclopedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody_Knows_(2004_film), actual events, taking place in 1988 in Tokyo's Toshima-ku (ward), thoroughly described in "The affair of the four abandoned children of Sugamo" depiction of the incident, have been even far more gruesome. Well deserved rating 9 out of 10.
Though slow-moving and long (almost 2.5 hours), one never gets bored watching four kids (in the movie of the age of 4, 6, 10 and 12 years) trying to survive on their own. Kids are kawaii (cute) and their performances touching, while bringing to life a bittersweet story of abandoned children. Trying to avoid attention from authorities and subsequent institutionalisation or imposed guardianship, inevitably leading to their separation, they are concealing the fact from their landlords and neighbours, continuing to live alone and thus staying together, sadly, with an almost unsurprisingly tragic outcome.
Indeed a powerful story, based on real events. Unfortunately, as found on the free on-line encyclopedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody_Knows_(2004_film), actual events, taking place in 1988 in Tokyo's Toshima-ku (ward), thoroughly described in "The affair of the four abandoned children of Sugamo" depiction of the incident, have been even far more gruesome. Well deserved rating 9 out of 10.