After the Storm

After 2015’s lovely sibling drama Our Little Sister, Japanese auteur Hirokazu Koreeda returns to the Films from the South program with another warm and insightful family portrait. After the Storm takes a look at the effects of heredity and enviroment, and especially father/son relationships. Ryota is a down-on-his-luck author in his forties with a lot on his mind. He struggles for inspiration for his next big novel, which has been 15 years in the making. His recently departed father has left him with no inheritance, just a hopeless gambling addiction. What little money comes in from his day job as a private detective - uncovering infidelities for his clients (“research” for his next novel) - gets gambled away at the race track within hours. Adding to his woes, his ex-wife Kyoko is dating a wealthy new suitor, and threatens to take away his visitation rights to their son Shingo if Ryota doesn’t pay up his long overdue child support payments. The arrival of a hurricane reunites the little family for one day at Ryoto’s mother’s - a charming old lady who is bent on bringing the couple back together.

After the Storm is no CGI-ridden catastrophe film: both emotional drama and physical destruction are kept well within modest proportions. As in many Koreeda films, the tone is both light and melancholic. Past traumas and common experiences are subtly hinted at, their effects still present. No one is perfect, the film seems to say, but there is hope and joy to be found in small, every day interactions: preparing meals together, going for a walk in the sunshine. A beautifully played, low-key homage to family life and the human potential for understanding and reconciliation.

Born in Tokyo in 1962, Koreeda is one of Japan’s foremost filmmakers. His original ambition was to be a novelist. He studied literature at Waseda University, but upon graduation had a change of heart and started making documentaries for Japanese television. He has directed a series of award winning films, including After Life (1998), Nobody Knows (2004), Still Walking (2008) and Like Father, Like Son (2013) and Our Little Sister (2015).

MEET THE DIRECTOR

After the Storm is our closing film. Director Hirokazu Koreeda is our guest, and before the screening at Vika, Saturday October 15 at 8 p.m., Koreeda will be presented on stage.

After the film, there will be a finishing party in the basement at Vika!