Still Walking

If it’s fast action movie you’re after then Still Walking (2008) is not for you, but if it’s slow pacing, first-rate dialogue and brilliant acting your looking for then this superb Japanese portrait of family life will fit the bill. Set almost entirely during a 24 hour period Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s film examines the tensions that arise when a middle class family gathers at the family home to observe the thirteenth anniversary of the tragic death of the younger of two son’s while saving another boy from drowning. The household consists of the unemployed elder brother, his wife and her young son by an earlier marriage, his sister who plans to move back in to her parent’s home with her husband and her noisy kids, the father a quarrelsome retired doctor and mother who spends most of her time preparing food. To round off this cauldron of family tension, each year they invite the lad that Junpei saved from drowning to force home the fact that he owes his life to their dead son. This beautifully observed film is highly recommended.