It’d be easy to shrug this film off “Memories of Matsuko” is on topical viewings, a cartoon coloured over saturated musical with emotionally manipulative material.
To dismiss this movie would be a disservice to Japanese cinema, which, the more movies I watch, seem to walk the lines of bad execution to create singularly spectacular visions.
“Memories of Matsuko” is too much of everything too much singing, too many colourful, animated scenes, too many heartbreaks. It’s too long and the lead character is too unbelievable.
Is that so important? The title character, Matsuko, lives in a candy-coloured fantasy world, where she sings in diorama inspired cutouts from the real world, but her real life is full of tragedy and pain.
And then men! “Memories of Matsuko” features a rogue’s gallery of men that disappoint, betray, abuse and jeer at Matsuko, whose only crime is that she desperately wanted the love of her stone-faced father, driving her to throw herself completely into dangerous, abusive relationships.
The saturated colours and musical numbers, then, are Matsuko’s delusional take on her own life, filled with bright, peppy numbers at first, then sexy, seedy jazz tunes as she falls into prostitution and yazuka bad boys. Take a look at the Japanese language trailer and try to feel the rampant energy coursing through this film:
There’s so much craziness in this film that it’s intimidating to write about; Matsuko’s life takes here to hair salons, prison, porn studios, riverbanks and teenybopper concerts, and every step is even more painful than the last, until she can barely even begin to fantasize about her life any more.
Sadly, I don’t understand why this movie could be so over exaggerated and still be so moving leaving the cinema, there were several people still bawling their eyes out. Didn’t we watch a comedy? Why did it feel so miserable, and yet full of exhuberant hope? Why does the music melt my icy heart a fraction of an inch?
“Memories of Matsuko” is, then, despite the garagantuan list of flaws or perhaps because of them an inspired, rousing movie. A film that brings the despair and torment of the Elektra complex to full bloom, reducing a beautiful, promising young woman to shreds by defamation, physical abuse and, worst of all for Matsuko, alienation.
I say: A deeply unsettling film that teeters between being laugh-out-loud funny and quietly sorrowful. Highly recommended!
See it for: All the actors are fantastic, but the lead, Miki Nakatani, is a Japanese singer and her voice haunts, especially in the theme music
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