SAWAKO DECIDES (Japan, 2010)
Directed by: Yuya Ishii
Starring: Hikari Mitsushima, Masahi Endo, Kira Aihara, Kotaro Shiga

"Office lady" Sawako is on her fifth job and her fifth year in Tokyo, cleaning up snot-nosed toddlers' little accidents at a down-and-out toy company.  She's on her fifth boyfriend too, "below-average" single dad Kenichi (Masashi Endo, WILD ZERO), who's desperate to shackle her with the bonds of matrimony so his daughter, little Kayako (Kira Aihara), can have a new mommy.  "It can't be helped," the numb Sawako reasons - she's nothing special, and life sucks and then you die.  With the country facing a global financial crisis, lethargy reigns supreme, and Sawako's regular colonic treatments aren't even helping anymore.  Even the gorilla at the local zoo is feeling the blues.  Sounds depressing enough, right?  Wrong, because this is the latest star vehicle for LOVE EXPOSURE's human hand grenade, Hikari Mitsushima, and that means that when SAWAKO DECIDES, everybody better recognize.

When her father (Kotaro Shiga, THE TASTE OF TEA) falls deathly ill, Sawako is forced to break a self-imposed exile and return to her hometown, reluctantly lugging Kenichi and Kayako in tow.  There, she finds that the family clam-packing business has hit the skids, and it's up to her to win the respect of the legion of hardbitten fishwives who work the assembly-line.  Pelted with irritating obligations and old grudges, surrounded by a cacaphony of jeering voices telling her "no," Sawako is forced to face down her negative-sum sense of self and fight for tomorrow, whether she believes in it or not.

Straight from Japan to your frozen seafood section, SAWAKO is a po-faced, viciously hilarious social satire with a hidden hematoma for a heart.  Yuya Ishii (OF MONSTER MODE) started his career just a few years ago as a young, experimental, somewhat bratty filmmaker (a bit like a Japanese Harmony Korine) but just add a narrative and lead actress and suddenly he's one of Japan's best new filmmakers. This is the most cracked-out coming-of-age tale you'll ever see, complete with a rollicking company anthem celebrating the "lower-middle" of society and advocating the overthrow of the government, while Mitsushima's rigorously controlled, half-shrug slacker performance effortlessly camouflages the killer instinct laying in wait behind her eyes, ready to declare, "I will not be beaten!"  Life is full of shame, but that's no excuse for not giving it all you got while you've got it.  Remember this and the other lessons Sawako learns, and apply them in everyday life - teach your children how to fertilize the land with their poop, and save a seat on the bus for the watermelon of hope.

Presented in association with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film (July 1 - 16, 2010)