This year has been a great cinematic year for me because it finally allowed me the opportunity to explore the work of some filmmakers that I have had a long-standing interest in based on their reputations and the general consensus about their work, but didn’t actually take the chance to explore for myself yet, due to either intimidation by their towering reputations, or because of their perceived brilliance being in need of particular attention when the time was appropriate. One of the filmmakers who I found the most fascinating out of them has been Hirokazu Kore-eda, who, through only one film I saw a few months ago, changed the way I perceive cinema and the way one can tell stories in a relentlessly human manner. Still Walking was an extraordinary film about family and grief that stands as one of the most transcendent and beautiful films I have ever seen, and a moment of unabashed emotional catharsis for me. The next logical step for me in looking at Kore-eda’s work was with arguably his most critically-acclaimed and universally beloved film, Nobody Knows (Japanese: 誰も知らない or Dare mo Shiranai). I will not pretend that I am an ardent devotee of Kore-eda, and I acknowledge that for all intents and purposes, I am a neophyte to his work, but one that is keenly going in search of more of his masterful stories. However, this is the second consecutive film in which Kore-eda has led me to question issues far bigger than those presented in his film, and if there is a filmmaker who has the ability to tap into the unspoken laws of the human condition, it is Kore-eda, who remains one of the most fascinating directors working today. Nobody Knows is an utter masterpiece, and while I do admit that I do throw that word around quite often, if there was a filmmaker who constantly makes films deserving of that denotation, it is the astonishing Hirokazu Kore-eda. Nobody Knows is a simple but profoundly moving film, and there is so much that cannot be said about this film, if only for the reason that I am singularly unable to articulate the myriad of poignant messages and details present throughout this film, as well as the fact that each viewer will find something unique in this film, based on their own experiences and understandings of human nature. Nobody Knows is one of the rare films that are astonishing enough to render the viewer at an entire loss for words, and its many themes are better experienced rather than discussed, which all lends credence to the fact that Kore-eda is one of the most profoundly important storytellers working in cinema today.

Nobody Knows is based on a true story of the events that occurred in 1988 in the Sugamo neighborhood in Tokyo, and it builds its narrative around real incidents, fictionalizing them just enough to detach them from reality, but retaining enough of the story to give this film the necessary emotional gravitas it has. Keiko Fukushima (You) is a single mother of four children, each of which was fathered by a different man, due to her inability to retain a meaningful, long-term relationship. Keiko is an irresponsible free-spirit and often leaves her children for long stretches of time, and eventually outright abandons them to move to Osaka to get married to yet another man she has fallen deeply in love with, which presumably invalidates the basic needs of her children, who she abandons recklessly, but with a slight amount of guilt. This abandonment forces her oldest son, Akira (Yūya Yagira), to take responsibility for his younger siblings, something that should not be assigned to a boy of only twelve years of age, and he becomes their parental figure. None of the children are educated, with their mother putting her own selfish desires ahead of her children, and her four children need to survive through any way they know how, and as the money grows less and less over time, the children start to struggle, with Akira doing his best to give his siblings the best possible quality of life, even though he knows that their situation grows more grim by the day. Akira relies on the kindness of strangers to help him and the other children, and they manage to get by, albeit only barely, while frequently longing for the return of their mother, who they know will never come back for them, yet they fail to ever abandon hope.

One of the most distinctive elements of Still Walking was the ensemble, with every performance being given by capable, dedicated actors, all of which had interesting characters and brought out the true humanity of these individuals through their performances. Still Walking was more focused on the adults in the family, whereas Nobody Knows is a fitting companion to that piece, insofar as it is centered almost entirely on children, which already makes this a film of note because the childhood experience is a concept adored by literature. The main performance in Nobody Knows also happens to be, without any exaggeration, the most natural and honest portrayal of a child I think I have ever seen conveyed across any medium. Yūya Yagira, at the age of merely twelve, gives one of the finest performances of the twenty-first century, and I am utterly blown away by his extraordinary talents. His expressiveness and subtlety is a remarkable remedy to other films that focus more on the unhinged, uninhibited recklessness of childhood, and while Nobody Knows does not ignore this facet at all, even going so far as to address it directly, Yagira’s nuanced performance is filled with staggering complexities and quiet intensity.

In this performance, Yagira says far more with a gesture or expression than any words could possibly convey, and he turns in a performance far more mature and grounded than many performers his age. This is not to discredit the rest of the cast, all of which give tremendous performances in their own right. There is that trite adage that one should never work with children or animals, and not only does Kore-eda defy this rule, he dismantles it and proves that sometimes, children are able to give some truly stunning performances. Ayu Kitaura (as Kyōko), Hiei Kimura (as Shigeru) and especially Momoko Shimizu (as Yuki) give confoundingly great performances, and they evoke the familiarity and intimacy of a real sibling unit. Their performances are moving, adorable and nuanced when they are required to be, and their relationship with each other, both in constructing these characters and as performers, are glaringly clear. You, who is a wonderfully talented actress herself, has the small but pivotal role as the mother of the children who leaves them for selfish reasons, and while her time on screen is limited, her portrayal leaves a lingering impact, and her presence is felt throughout the film in many ways, serving to be an embodiment of the “present-absent”, and the catalyst for the heartbreaking events of the film. Kore-eda deserves endless praise for so many reasons, and one of the more significant ones is his remarkable ability to derive stunning performances out of any actor, tapping into their inherent talents and working with them to deliver characters that are honest, sincere and realistic.

One aspect of Kore-eda’s work that I appreciate is the fact that every viewer is going to derive something different from the experience of watching his films, finding elements that they relate to more than others, with small details resonating with some more than others. However, Kore-eda tells a story that many people can relate to in some way, that of family. Just like his previous films, the concept of family is central to Nobody Knows, and Kore-eda exhibits his tremendously intricate understanding of the nature of familial bonds in a way that represents something many of us experience. I may be unfairly comparing Nobody Knows to Still Walking, especially considering the fact that the latter was made four years after the former. However, considering these two are often considered his towering masterpieces (a contentious point, especially considering his vast career of critically-acclaimed films), looking at what they represent is not necessarily inappropriate, as there are certain common themes that are complementary to each respective film. Kore-eda looks at family through the lens of some metaphysical, emotional experience that the characters endure. In Still Walking, it is the painful loss of losing a loved one. In Nobody Knows, it is something far more simple but no less abstract: relentless hope. The characters in Nobody Knows hold out hope in vain, longing for salvation from their rapidly deteriorating condition, praying for a better day to be on the horizon. They know that their hope is not feasible, yet they are never distracted from feeling as if they need to will their prayers into being. The characters are bound by their mutual hopefulness, as well as their tenacious ability to make the best out of any situation, doing their best not only to physically survive through sustenance and shelter but also remain psychologically strong, never allowing the wretched situation get the better of them. It is in his exploration of the strong bonds of family that Kore-eda makes some of his most powerful statements, and Nobody Knows is an ode to the strength of a united and loving family who are motivated by their shared longing for a better day to rid them of the encroaching despair.

Another element of Nobody Knows that is of interest is that of the coming-of-age narrative. I have spoken at length about fiction’s preoccupation with child protagonists many times before, and the concept of the bildungsroman, where a young person comes of age, both physically and mentally, through difficult circumstances, have been a staple of fiction for a very long time. Nobody Knows is not an exception, and through positioning all of his main characters as young children, it gives Kore-eda the opportunity to opportunity to explore facets of life in a way normally unseen through the eyes of adult viewers. One of the most significant features of the coming-of-age tale is that of education – whether traditional education or an education to the way the world operates, whether the classroom or the street corner, these kinds of stories always show these young people maturing from a place of innocence to inexperience. Education plays a pivotal role in Nobody Knows, as it is often noted that these children have been deliberately prevented from receiving a formal education due to their mother’s own selfish disposition, which results in the events of the film, which forces these children to gain a more practical education of how to survive and make a living. This is an inspiring, motivating story when it is centered on a young adult building their future, but when the focus is on a group of young and innocent children who have no choice but to grow up faster than normal for the sake of survival, it is a heartbreaking and harrowing experience. This is a film about children growing up in a vicious world, where their futures are uncertain and terrifyingly bleak, but also one about how the human spirit always does its best to ensure it keeps going. Nobody Knows is a film about innocent young people who constantly are at threat of losing that innocence, with desperate times almost calling for desperate measures. However, Kore-eda is far too logical and realistic to force his characters to abandon their morals in order to make some bold statement about desperation, and while there are allusions to the immoral ways some people make a living, it is neither overt nor elaborate, making the central story of Nobody Knows a heartbreaking but gentle one.

In Nobody Knows, Kore-eda makes some profoundly moving statements, but that is only partially the reason behind the success of this film, with much of what makes this film so profoundly moving being contained within how it is delivered. Kore-eda creates a film with a narrative structure that is simple and delicate, but never too fragile to avoid facing serious subject matter. Nobody Knows is not necessarily the most pleasant film to watch, becoming quite a difficult experience due to its shocking and brutal portrayal of the tragic living conditions of our protagonists. This film could’ve easily been a zany, quirky comedy about children being able to get by without adult supervision, and in some ways this could have been an easier path for this film to take, because cinema is often about showing alternative realities and presenting ideal situations, and who amongst us, when we were children, did not long for the independence to do whatever our hearts desired at some point? Nobody Knows is not entirely without humor, and there are some moments of levity scattered throughout this film, but there are more important issues at hand within this film that demand more attention, and Kore-eda focuses on presenting the situation of these children as realistically as possible, showing their living conditions in as stark and upsetting a light as it needed to be. Nobody Knows is not a disturbing film, and it never overemphasizes the plight of these characters for dramatic purposes, and the filmmaker rather opts for a more natural approach to the story, which obviously results in unsettling portrayals of poverty, both physical and psychological, especially through the growing desperation of the characters, who become more hopeless and unhappy as time goes on. Nobody Knows is a delicate and realistic portrayal of a heartbreaking situation, shown through a lens of uncomfortable truthfulness, and the care Kore-eda took in making this film was quite simply astonishing.

More than anything else, Kore-eda achieved something with this film that is not normally shown with such dignified grace and profound beauty – as with his other films, the director has clearly shown his intention to tell stories that chronicle humanity in a way that is simple but still very moving. Nobody Knows is a film that manages to say so much through very little, with the smallest moments making subtle assertions about issues that exceed anything a film could faithfully show. Nobody Knows is a film with a bilateral function – it is a poignant grievance for the unseen masses, the multitudes of people who are struggling to exist in a harsh world, doing their very best to ensure the safety and security of themselves and their kin, a testament to the displaced and the disadvantaged of this world who are stricken with misfortune and unhappiness, either due to their own actions or the actions of others. However, Nobody Knows is also a poetic celebration of life as it is, showing the humor that can be derived from even the most unfortunate of situations. It looks upon life with tender joy and serious conviction, and the result is a film with a very simple execution but a deeply moving message that will resonate with everyone in some way. Kore-eda has the enviable ability to draw the audience in, forming relationships with us and the characters and allowing us to be active spectators in their various metaphysical travails to wherever he intends them to go.

Nobody Knows is a wonderful film, one that elicited quite a few years, with its raw emotional portrayal of reality being unsettling and disconcerting. However, Nobody Knows may be a sorrowful film, but it is never a miserable one, and it finds its levity in the playful affability of these characters, making Nobody Knows a melancholic and beautiful ode to childhood, family and a stark reminder of the plight of those who are able to make a joyful life out of a despairing situation. Nobody Knows is a film that is beautiful beyond belief, both visually and in terms of the narrative, but can one really expect anything other than that from Kore-eda, who continues to bewilder me with his startlingly brilliant talents, to which Nobody Knows is just another constituent of the career of a truly magnificent filmmaker. Personally, I cannot wait to continue to explore his filmography, because there is a certain sensitivity Kore-eda has to sincerely human stories, and his explorations of the inner-workings of humanity are nothing short of dumbfounding, and I will continue to stand by my assertion that he is one of the most important filmmakers of his generation. There are few films as brutally honest and acutely emotive as Nobody Knows, one of the most soul-stirring cinematic experiences I have had in a while.