Definiciones y conceptos básicos

1995. CAST: Yoshinori Okada, K6ta Kusano, Ayumi Hamasaki, Kumi Takada, K6ji Yamaguchi.

124 minutes. RELEASES: DVD, Eklipse (France, French subtitles), Home Screen (Holland, Dutch subtitles). VHS, Dangerous to Know (U.K., Eng­

lish subtitles).

Burgeoning homosexuality in high school and its collisions with adolescent peer pressu re.

Hashiguchi's second feature is a very earnest portrayal of the difficulties of puberty, wheth­

er gay or otherwise. Personal cinema with uni­

versal resonance.

Where his debut feature A Touch ^of Fever still re­

quired Hashiguchi to see through a framework (in this case teenage prostitution) in order to get close

to his characters, in Like Grains of Sand he dares to strip his portrayal of misfit youths of all artifice. It was the right step to take, because the director's sophomore effort is as powerful as it is sincere.

Set in that melting pot of raging hormones we know as high school, Like Grains of Sand de­

picts an impossible love triangle between two boys and one girl. As he would do in the opening scenes of the later Hush!, Hashiguchi establishes the personalities of his three protagonists, as well as the exact extent of the romantic complications between them, within the first few shots, using hardly a word of dialogue. We see Ito (Okada) staring at his classmate Yoshida (Kusano) as they mix chalk in the storage room of the school sports field. After the two boys emerge onto the pitch, Ito's repressed excitement and the swelter­

ing summer heat cause him to lose conscious­

ness. In the infirmary, their classmate Aihara (Hamasaki) stares at the unconscious Ito. The next day, she is the first to taunt him into ad­

mitting his feelings for Yoshida. Yoshida himself meanwhile distractedly dates pretty and pristine Shimizu (Takada), but yearns from a distance for the non-conformist, mysterious Aihara, whose dark past makes her shun human contact.

Ryosuke Hashiguchi's films are never about what they seem to be about. Like Grains of Sand is not about homosexuality, and also not about a love triangle. The director always refuses to iso­

late his characters in their own microcosm, in­

stead choosing to describe them at least partially by way of the influence their environment has on them. When Ito's father finds a letter from a 5 5-year old man addressed to his son, he takes him to a psychiatrist to have him cured of his ho­

mosexuality. There Ito runs into Aihara, who is also in therapy, and with the two of them no lon­

ger able to hide their biggest secrets from each other, she becomes his closest confidante despite her eccentricities. The class finds out about Ito's affection for Yoshida when Ito's friend Kanbara (Yamaguchi) mistakenly thinks Ito is after the same girl as he is, effectively forcing a confession out of him. The conflict between environment

Hush! ^• 177

and individual that is at the heart of Hashiguchi's work is readily apparent here.

It's such intricate relationships and use of cause and effect that make Like Grains of Sand an infinitely more sincere portrait of the trib­

ulations of adolescence than a film Like John Hughes'S The Breakfast Club ( 1 98 5). There's no defiant fist waving at the end, no "united we stand against the obnoxious teacher" resolu­

tion. It's the lack of resolutions that makes Like Grains of Sand work so well, as well as the refusal to ever take the easy route and go for simplifi­

cation or stereotyping. Hashiguchi depicts the same-sex affection inherent in the high school environment (a shot of mingling naked torsos opens the film, the character of Kanbara con­

stantly hugs, grabs, and wrestles with his male classmates) as a way to show the hypocrisy of the bullying that Ito undergoes after Kanbara makes his sexuality a public secret. But instead of chastising anyone, this serves as another ex­

ample of the contradictions and complexities of the characters and their relationships with each other. Despite obviously sympathizing with Ito, Hashiguchi shows that feelings of insecurity are not exclusive to his protagonist.

Like Grains of Sand is a perfect illustration of Hashiguchi's ability to give his personal cinema universal resonance. Rather than self-obsessed navel gazing, it talks about feelings we know all too well ourselves. Both naturalistic and styl­

ized, intimate and universal, Like Grains of Sand is exemplary cinema.

� Hush!

/\ 'Y Y:;J.. !

H as s hu!

2001. CAST: Kazuya Takah ashi, Reiko Kataoka, Seiichi Tanabe, Yoko Akino, Tsugumi. 135 min­

utes. RELEASES: DVD, Strand Releasing (U.S., Eng­

lish subtitles), Happynet Pictures (Ja pan, English subtitles), Fox Pathe ( France, French subtitles).

Hush!

Ryosuke Hashiguchi reprises the love triangle structure of his previous film and turns It into a more outright comedic venture. Focusing on adults this time, the comedy never compro­

mises the film's sincerity or dramatic impact.

When we meet our three lead characters, they are all single and lonely. Naoya (Takahashi) is an otherwise carefree guy who works in a pet shop catering to rich and eccentric clientele. An avid visitor of Shinjuku's gay scene, he is open about his sexuality, which seems to be accepted by ev­

eryone but his mother, who is under the eter­

nal impression that her son will inevitably grow breasts. Katsuhiro (Tanabe), in contrast, hides his homosexuality from his colleagues at the research plant where he works and does such a good job of it that one female colleague (Tsu­

gumi) is hopelessly in love with him. Naoya and Katsuhiro meet one evening outside Naoya's

fa-vorite bar and are soon on their way to an actual relationship.

The third element in the equation is Asako, a young woman who has lived a life resembling self-destruction. Now in her thirties, she wish­

es to turn over a new leaf and wants to have a baby. After a gynecologist advises her to have a totally unnecessary hysterectomy, this wish only becomes stronger-having a child as a single mother becomes the ultimate form of rebellion.

When her umbrella is stolen in a restaurant and she waits in vain for the incessant downpour to end, Katsuhiro offers her his, and from that mo­

ment Asako has found the ideal father for her child.

With the names and locations changed, the above premise might well sound like the pitch for Rupert Everett's next romantic comedy of errors. Indeed, based on the above outline it's not hard to imagine Hollywood chasing this

one for the remake rights. However, it's doubt­

ful whether that remake would ever achieve the level of subtlety, characterization, and careful observation that follow those opening twenty minutes and which so typically define a Hashi­

guchi film. Far from being a breezy, formulaic romantic comedy, Hush.' is a truthful document of the lives of three human beings and the con­

stant pressure they feel to succeed in life and face up to their environment.

No longer focusing on teenagers, the direc­

tor's third film does, however, allow itself to be more light and humorous in order to reflect the lives and experiences of its three lead characters.

In their early thirties and therefore older and wiser than the confused high school kids of A Touch of Fever and Like Grains of Sand, Asako, Naoya and Katsuhiro are people who can put things into perspective. As a result, the film also shows different facets. Hush! at times certainly resembles a comedy, especially in the crowd­

pleasing scenes involving barfly Yiiji, a loud, abrasive but ultimately lovable fellow patron at Naoya's favorite hangout. But it's not the laughs that make such scenes work, it's how much they feel like episodes from the character's lives. This goes equally for the film's more dramatic scenes, which never exist to wallow in misery but offer

Hush! ^• 179

subtlety even when characters are screaming at each other.

Despite the seemingly breezy premise, Hashiguchi covers a lot of thematic ground in his script. The very fundamental motif of the in­

dividual's struggle against society in deciding his own life here results in what seems like a wish to re-address the definition of the term "family. " All three characters are shown in scenes with their direct relatives: Naoya with his ignorant mother, Asako with her estranged taxi driver father, and Katsuhiro with the family of his brother. Al­

though Hashiguchi has denied the existence of an agenda, compared to the loveless atmosphere in the arranged marriage of Katsuhiro's brother and the last remnants of family that are Naoya's and Asako's respective mother and father, the menage-a-trois the three leads decide to under­

take seems like a more than healthy alternative.

Hush! is a winning, funny, and often poignant comedy/drama, revolving around a threesome of magnificent performances. It once again bears witness to the director's extraordinary talent for portraying utterly believable human characters, whose emotions resonate whether the audience is gay or straight. Ryosuke Hashiguchi deserves much more credit than the misguided label "gay filmmaker" allows.