MIFF NOTES: After the Storm (2016, Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)

When a director does so well what he or she does so well, it is easy to take that done-so-wellness for granted. When Hirokazu Kore-eda does so well what he does so well, it is even more difficult to give him credit, because what he does so well is so fucking unassuming.

There are moments in his latest, After the Storm that cut through all the bullshit of family life to show it so clear-eyed that you are left wondering why it is not second nature for film makers the world over to be able to show it how it is, how it really is. And to do so without being sentimental (and I know that is a charge often levelled at Kore-eda).

For those that have an unfortunate aversion to sentimentality, After the Storm presents as almost de-sentimentalised. Hiroshi Abe plays Ryota, a novelist collecting life experience as a private detective (he's really just a private detective who once used to be a novelist). He spends his days grifting off his clients, his boss (a pre-requisite dose of Lily Frankie) and his mother (another stunning turn from Kirin Kiki, who has managed to top her wonderful turn in An), all to collect enough money to be able to spend time with his young son and maybe work his way back into his marriage.

Kore-eda hasn't positioned this film in the present. Ryota's story is about the past, and the future, of lost potential and things that may yet come to pass - that great genius that blooms late. That makes for a depressing, loss-filled milieu, but Kore-eda finds the humour within it, just as he finds beauty in the way people can share a connection while no longer being connected.

More of that wonderful Kore-eda happy-sad wrapped around more of his unassumingly piercing philosophising.

★★★★

Trailer:

After the Storm screened as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival 2016.

You can check out other films from the festival here.