After the Storm

Japan­ese direc­tor Hirokazu Koree­da is a mas­ter of craft­ing vivid, cin­e­mat­ic worlds. He trans­ports you to a place where you’re as like­ly to burst into a laugh­ter so hearty that it makes your ribs ache, as you are into tears so fero­cious you feel like your lungs might drown.

The premise of his new film, After the Storm, is noth­ing new. A fam­i­ly patri­arch dies on the eve of anoth­er giant storm – typhoon 23 to be exact, which is, appar­ent­ly, a big num­ber for any sea­son. We watch as his remain­ing kin come togeth­er, like soft winds gath­er­ing pace before the mete­o­ro­log­i­cal chaos unfolds. At the cen­tre of this par­tic­u­lar tem­pest is Ryoto Shin­o­da (Hiroshi Abe) and his moth­er Yoshiko (Kirin Kiki).

She is the wise, ever-enter­tain­ing sage, while her son awk­ward­ly fix­ates on self-defeat­ing Lost Boy shenani­gans. Ryoto is a once-promis­ing nov­el­ist turned two-bit pri­vate detec­tive – with an unshake­able gam­bling habit just like his father – who returns to his fam­i­ly nest to scour for any over­looked memen­tos his dad neglect­ed to pawn off before he died. Charming.

“Why did my life turn out like this?” Ryoto scrawls on a Post-it note short­ly after his fruit­less exca­va­tion. It’s easy to guess the answer to his rhetor­i­cal, fluro-yel­low cry for help ear­ly on. He’s a self-involved, unfo­cused, man-child with who has nev­er been able to tru­ly place the inter­ests of oth­ers – even his own flesh and blood – ahead of his own. This down-and-out schlub char­ac­ter is, again, noth­ing new, yet Koree­da paints with such vivid and del­i­cate water­colours that these poten­tial­ly stock fig­ures feel entire­ly novel.

After the Storm finds aston­ish­ing nuance, strange­ness and often hilar­i­ty in sit­u­a­tions where life is at its most heart-rend­ing. Among its range of the­mat­ic touch­points are the sud­den death of a par­ent, the fact that the oth­er will like­ly fol­low close behind, the real­i­sa­tion that you will nev­er be as great or suc­cess­ful as you were des­tined to be, the accep­tance of your part in the unrav­el­ing of a mar­riage which has undoubt­ed­ly scarred your estranged child for life. Yes, it does sound depress­ing as hell on paper, but it real­ly isn’t.

What is most unique about this film (par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in the director’s canon) is not just its dis­tinct Koree­da-ness, but how he finds pro­found rel­e­vance in seem­ing­ly incon­se­quen­tial moments. The director’s recent, more sac­cha­rine efforts (Like Father, Like Son, Our Lit­tle Sis­ter) often veered on cloy­ing, but After the Storm is won­der­ful­ly know­ing in its kitsch sweet­ness. And it all cen­tres around Kiki’s astound­ing, relaxed per­for­mance – her mere pres­ence is a joy.

It’s ele­ments such as Kiki that assist in weav­ing a cel­lu­loid tapes­try so sub­tle, so del­i­cate and so ornate, that only after­ward are you able to ful­ly appre­ci­ate the big­ger pic­ture. Dur­ing one of her ad hoc cook­ing lessons, she pro­claims: ​“The flavours sink into the ingre­di­ents if you cool them slow­ly and let it sit overnight. Like peo­ple.” As with all great mem­o­ries (and movies) that linger long after they have fin­ished, After the Storm tru­ly blos­soms once the final cred­its have rolled. It’s the kind of film that leaves an imprint on your soul.