At the moment I find that I am more interested in the changes in myself than in films and old women. I have the strong feeling that my brain is divided into then and now with very vivid memories of my early childhood in the Middle East.
I was born on the 3rd of January 1935 in Iskenderun where my father worked away from his Aleppo roots. Some of my official papers quote 9th of January as my birthday…
My early youth before the war was spent between Iskenderun, Tripoli and Aleppo. Of these years I recall next to nothing. When war was declared in the area, the extended family as Italian subjects had to retreat to my Grandmother’s house in Aleppo. Of the crowd of people I saw every day I will mention the people who made a strong impression on me.
The Rachel-Murad couple: She was a teacher trained by the Alliance Francaise in Palestine and came to work. She had lived as a paying guest in the Picciotto family house and taught
in the Alliance School not far away. She had two very young boys. The grandmother favoured the older one, seeing in him a “Picciotto”. She is inscribed in my memory as the aunt who made landscapes of the food in order to make Robert, my younger brother, eat his meals. Later, on holiday , she took us at sunrise to the mountain and made us do exercises. She believed in healthy eating and her fruit salad was everybody’s favourite.
Of her husband I do not recall anything….
Rachel: my aunt, in the middle of the Picciotto family. She was a slave to her 5 brothers even if some were much younger than her. They ordered her about and this infuriated me. I saw another side of her at the Orodisback shop where she was in charge of the glove department. I was fascinated by the range of shapes and colours and sizes and asked her if she knew the price of every one of them. Her positive response impressed me. Up to now I can see the counters and drawers and display.
Robert my younger brother screamed and fought against going to school every morning. He had to be carried by two members of the school to push him into the school car…. Sitting on the steps of the house waiting for our mother to come back from a visit he told us stories that he invented..
My older brother Mony: One event. The day the war ended he pushed a bed to the window that overlooked a Synagogue’s entrance and jumped on it time and time again…..
There were always loud arguments, disputes, disagreements, orders. Of course they did not affect me.
I loved my grandmother Reina. I was given her name that was changed to Rina when I started school. She ruled the whole extended family with the help of her oldest son, my father. Always a cigarette in her mouth or hand, she constantly requested cups of coffee and in the evening her arak. She had favourites but as I was the only girl in the next generation I was specially loved. But she was hard on my mother. I can see her before Aleppo was bombed establish her safe corner in the cellar. I can see the shelter she prepared. It had the brazier to make coffee, a comfortable chair, a table with a bottle of Arak and cigarettes. I do not know why this image did not involve other people but I remember that after all nobody used it…..
The Houses:
The Picciottos lived in an old house. The living quarters were on the first floor. On the ground floor was an open space and a dark passage where there was an entrance to the kitchen and also the well and a toilet. I see my mother and Rachel squatting around a primus stove in the open space and grandmother showing them how to cook something. I never ventured into the dark kitchen. An uncle used to threaten to lock us in the toilet if we misbehaved. The well was used to cool fruit and vegetables in the summer.
The Abrahams lived in a different area in a flat on the third floor with a balcony next to a tall tree. I always escaped there to listen to the wind in the branches…
There were carpets in the sitting room, a piano, other musical instruments and an exercise wall in the hall. Once I caught a glimpse of the Turkish speaking maid and wondered where she slept.
When the war ended we went to Beirut.
STILL WALKING (2008)
Still Walking (2008)
As with some family reunions, my second viewing of Still Walking was quite painful. I saw it at home with a cousin with whom I had shared family reunions in my youth. Her general comment was: there is a certain coldness between parents and children and between the old couple themselves, but maybe that’s what it is like in Japanese families.
When I saw Still Walking at the NFT I was overwhelmed by the familiarity of the atmosphere of a family gathering. I loved the mother and daughter talking cooking together and gossiping, with the mother’s familiar repeated recollections, the father’s grumpiness and detachment, the children running all over the place. I appreciated the efforts of the daughter to avoid conflicts and her interest in moving in with her parents ‘to look after them’ and of the son-in-law trying to ingratiate himself but forgetting to do what he promised. I recognised the new daughter-in-law and her child trying hard but failing to fit in. I somehow did not completely appreciate the unresolved grief of the loss of the elder son that the reunion was commemorating.
The story of the death of the elder child while saving a friend, the bitterness of the father, the revenge of the mother against the rescued man was a surprise. At the Q and A session with Kore Eda this subject was not raised but he mentioned the fact that for the dialogue he only used actual sentences that were used by the cast.
On second viewing I found the portrayal of the grieving old couple quite unacceptable, and dare I say, ageist. I found their resentful attitude and even nastiness towards the rescued man, depicted as an inadequate figure of fun, exaggerated. They both express openly and viciously their hatred. In fact the old couple appear in the whole film as selfish and unpleasant…
The couple express openly throughout the film prejudices on marriage, work ethic and careers.
What may have escaped me is the class and generational elements of the families interactions. The parents are well off and the father is very proud of his status as a doctor. He is treated with respect by his neighbours. The mother sticks with her traditional ideas about families, choice of a partner and when to have children. There is a certain distance between the couple. (The grandmother does not hesitate to recall her husband’s affair in front of everybody.)
The daughter and her family appear as secondary in the story. She tries to smooth out the conflicts in conversation. Her keenness to move in with her parents reveals a financial need. This is reinforced by the characterisation of the son-in-law as ineffectual. He is asked to do the menial job of mending some tiles in the bathroom but forgets to do so.
It is when the sister and family leave that the father and mother open up and reveal the cruelty of their yearly invitation. The mother even expresses the wish to carry on punishing the rescued unfortunate man. Having shown no interest in his grandchildren, the father shows some hope in the adopted son when the child shows curiosity in the array of medicines lining the office of the retired doctor.
The surviving son, Ryota, his wife and adopted child represent the new generation. Ryota a jobless art restorer feels strongly the disapproval of his father, in particular because he is unemployed at the moment. But he has the decency of criticising his father for the language he uses to describe the low class survivor.
The gift of a Kimono by the mother to her daughter-in-law seems to soften her character but her immediate advice that it would be better if she did not have another child…. somehow does not.
Although the goodbyes feel warm enough, the young couple decide not to spend the night again in the family home.
The last shots show Ryota, wife, young boy and younger daughter tending the family grave.
I find it strange that no commentaries are made in the reviews on the representation of the grieving old couple in this film. The Q and A session with Kore Eda did not mention the traditional relationships and ways of behaving between parents and children in Japanese customs. Neither does the film offer any way to sympathise with the grieving grandparents.
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