Our Little Sister
Hirokazu Koreeda’s adaptation of the manga comic Umimachi Diary is an example of patience and balance in filmmaking.
The movie invites us in to the home of three sisters, Sachi, Yoshino, and Chika, all young adults, who have their seemingly happy lives disrupted when they learn that their estranged father, who left them and their mother 14 years previously to marry another woman, has passed away – leaving behind another daughter with that same woman, who also passed away some years before. The sisters meet their half-sister Suzu at the funeral and invite her to live with them and in doing so are forced to reckon with their feelings towards their father, mother, and each other. The insertion of a new a sister who has not yet learned to handle the pains of a broken home challenges the domestic bliss that the girl’s enjoy and as Suzu opens up about her feelings each of the three elder girls is able to do the same and re-examine the relationships they have developed.
The first half is uncluttered and simply lays out the different characters of each of the three eldest sisters without judging either one. Later on we meet the girl’s mother and our preconceptions about the father are again challenged, with the story coming to be about decisions and kindness. The camera avoids lingering on any one of the girls nor does it set aside one particular scene to explain the history of the old house the sisters share or give us a timeline of how the family was torn apart. One scene does stand out, however, Suzu’s ride beneath an avenue of blooming cherry blossom, the significance of which she had already explained and so the camera revels in her joy along with us.
As Suzu fits in at school she joins the girls journeying around their seaside home of Kamakura, each location a memory of their father’s past, they also use these opportunities to reminisce about happy times and through this dialogue we learn more about their upbringing. Warm scenes around the Kotatsu table, making plum wine, and eating and drinking at their favourite café all served up via a naturalistic script that allows the drama to play out in a familiar fashion, whilst never falling into sentimentality.
The focus on the character’s actions and allowing the linear passing of time to reveal the deeper truth is similar to another manga comic adaptation that played in Thailand’s cinemas this year, Little Forest. In that four part film series the majority of the action focuses around a girl, also abandoned by her mother and father, who moves back home to her house in a small village and becomes self-sufficient by growing all her own food. Both films are sparse in their plot but the pleasure of their company makes for an enjoyable experience.
We learn what we need to from the sister’s interaction in Our Little Sister and the constant warmth of the house is a reminder of the film’s focus on their present situation and not the struggles of the past.