The Makioka Sisters (1983)

Not rated, but it is pretty innocent.  I'm going to make a lot of Downton Abbey comparisons.  Well, at least one.   I have that one planned out.  Like Downton Abbey, there's a lot of talk about things that could potentially be scandalous without actual real scandal.  Also, most people's definition of scandal and this movie's definition of scandal are night and day.  There is some smoking and some drinking.  I suppose that people could be offended by that.  Some peopel aren't nice?  Is that something to point out to parents concerned about content in film?

DIRECTOR: Kon Ichikawa

For those who didn't read the MPAA section, this movie is basically Japanese Downton Abbey.  I loved Downton Abbey.  I didn't think that I would.  Despite the fact that I'm a "Literally Anything" kind of movie watcher, I rarely put "elevated romance" as my genre of choice.  But I really got into it.  It seemed like their problems were so different than mine.  Normally, people would consider that off-putting.  But there's something so fascinating about people making bananas choices because there's a hint of blue blood in their family.  

Now, I will say that Downton has honed the elevated romance genre to a sharp point.  If you consider Downton Abbey boring --which I consider a completely valid criticism --then this movie will be even more boring.  For all of the "Who will marry whom?" and "How are we going to keep this offensively large estate in the family?", Downton Abbey is a melodrama that really rides the line of soap opera.  The Makioka Sisters isn't quite that.  There's no evil gay butlers who want you to trip on soap.  There's no Titanic plot.  The closest thing that we get with The Makioka Sisters is a reminder that Japan during World War II was war minded and that's a pretty far stretch.  The Makioka Sisters begs you to pay attention to a lot of dialogue.  If anything, even though this is an adaptation of a novel, it feels like a play because there are long sequences of people just sitting in a room discussing their emotions and who should marry whom.  (It seems weird that I used the phrase "Who should marry whom?" a couple times now.  Honestly, it's proper grammar coupled with the most efficient way to say that idea.  I'm not going to apologize, despite the fact that it sticks out like a sore thumb.)

Mind you, I gave this movie my all.  I paid attention to the whole thing and fully invested myself.  This may be blasphemy to a lot of people, but I watch a lot of my movies while on the treadmill. There's a method to this madness.  I rarely have time to myself, but I do need to get a workout in.  I tend to put on movies that no one else would want to watch with me while on the treadmill. Criterion movies tend to fall into this category.  I would say that The Makioka Sisters is pretty aggressively Criterion.  It's slow and a little bit arty.  This makes both good and bad traits for a Criterion film and let me explain that.  It's great because the treadmill makes you focus on the film.  There's no looking at your phone on the treadmill.  Also, the movie is meant to sweep you away from focusing on the misery that is the treadmill.  But also, it's not so good of a movie for the treadmill because treadmill movies should really force your attention.  But I did pay attention and there's a couple of elements that I don't get.  I would love to blame 1930's Japan for these problems, but Ichikawa does an excellent job of filling in on social norms just using context to explain away parts.  

The thing that I didn't really get was all about Tatsuo.  I think it's Tatsuo.  First of all, Tatsuo's name is Makioka.  He's married to the older sister. Why do all of the sisters have the last name "Makioka"?  Secondly, and I really don't know what I'm doing with this one, is what is Tatsuo's relationship to either Yukiko or Taeko?  There are times where the movie paints him as a saint and there are times where the movie paints  him as a philandering deadbeat.  I'm not sure what to make of this character because of the Downtonness of it all.  Because people don't actually say what they mean in these upper crust societies, there's a lot of stiff upper lip about how things are actually terrible. If I'm not mistaken (and I probably am because all of the names elude me outside of IMDB right now), Tatsuo seemed to be putting on the moves with Yukiko.  Maybe it was Taeko.  I don't know.  I'm a bad blogger.  He always seemed partially relieved when Yukiko would reject her suitors.  When the movie ends, he's sitting and confessing that he is sad that "a woman that he loves" is going to get married.  When he's called out on being too young to be a father to such a woman, he just looks sadly out.

If everything that I think is true about Tetsuo, are we supposed to feel bad?  I mean, he's married to one of the sisters.  (Again, I'm such a bad blogger sometimes.) No one treats him badly.  He's just a guy who seems nice, but also cheats on his wife?  And the movie isn't really about him.  The movie is aptly named The Makioka Sisters because they're the ones who matter in this movie.  The reason that I'm not all that up on Tatsuo and his shannigans is because he plays such a small role in the movie.  Heck, dudes don't play a big part int his movie to begin with.  The most fascinating dude in the movie is Okuhata, the villain of the piece, and he's a caricature of a human being.

But let me tell you why I love Okuhata in this movie.  It's because I find Taeko the interesting one of the group.  She's the youngest child and the bad seed of the family. Taeko is the lynchpin of this movie.  First of all, we all know so many Taekos.  This was the most realistic thing I had ever seen in a movie and I just started listing people who were Taekos in real life.  But if Taeko didn't put a timer on everything happening in the movie, the rest of the family would be insufferable.  I mean, I love these characters and I'm all about trying to find a perfect mate for Yukiko.  But without Taeko constantly throwing a spanner into the works, I would find this movie incredibly whiny.  Let's be as clear as I can.  Even with Taeko, their real problems are pretty hilariously small.  They live in a world where they are marrying for status.  There's subtext that the Makioka's were once a big deal, but are slightly Grey Gardensing it up a bit.  (I'm going to start just taking movie titles and adding "-ing" to give my blog a youthful vibe.) I find that fascinating.  Like, we don't really know what happened to the greatness of this once epic family and yet, without a sense of whining, take these marriages incredibly seriously.

I don't know.  The movie isn't fun.  It is incredibly boring.  Do you know what else?  I don't even care.  There are a lot of movies that I just watch that are boring as sin and I don't even fight that. This is one of those movies.  Almost nothing happens.  One guy just dies out of nowhere.  An ear infection just kills him.  There's no lead up to this guy dying.  He just gets too close to Taeko and dies.  Also, the family is extorted for something that they didn't do and that problem just seems to go away.  Again, it might be part of the film's attempt to show Tetsuo's silent suffering.  Regardless, I just kind of liked it.   But again, I don't always hate boring. I found myself recommending it to my mother-in-law at Father's Day brunch.  That's pretty high praise, right?