An almost palpable sense of grief and loss hangs like a shroud over this tale of a nameless young couple who, having lost their beloved son Hyotarou to a childhood illness, quietly retreat into a private world of isolation and illusions.

Premiering in August 2010 as part of a 4-episode NHK television series entitled Ayashiki Bungô Kaidan (known as Kaidan Horror Classics in English), The Days After is acclaimed director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest masterpiece, following the rather lukewarm reception to Air Doll in 2009.

Here, the 49-year-old often hailed as the successor to legendary filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu is back on form, returning to his central themes of loss, death, and the ways in which we try, and fail, to cope with our ultimate and utter loneliness.

After making his daily visit to his son’s grave, the father clacks his way home in his rickety geta and stops to watch his neighbour’s young son spinning a top on the smoothened stump of a felled tree. Struck by the boy’s resemblance to his own son, he invites him over to their house to play sometime.

But it’s a different boy who follows him home and whose bare muddy feet the mother washes in a wooden bucket on the porch. Dressed in a white kimono that contrasts starkly with the couple’s – they’re almost always clad in black – this mysterious child is instantly accepted into the family.

Hyo-chan, they call him.

Despite its undeniably chilling subject matter, this is certainly no Ringu. Rather than fake blood and cheap scares, what Kore-eda explores is the horror of humanity – and its capacity for long-held resentment, the desire to delude oneself, and an indifference that’s as oblivious as it’s cruel.

And this is how The Days After truly gets under your skin.

Anyone familiar with his work will instantly recognise his master touches – stationary shots, a haunting film score, and that tender, intense examination of daily life, down to the most miniscule detail, that infuses the mundane with so much meaning.

When the couple’s infant daughter Asako is first introduced to the substitute Hyotarou, their father comments on how her nose and eyes look just like his. Shocked and angry, the boy yells, “No, they aren’t!” and storms off as the mother scolds her husband for even letting the siblings meet.

Strangely enough, Hyotarou’s rejection of his sister is later echoed by his parents. At dinnertime, the 3 gather around a low table in a softly-lit tatami room, while Asako is placed outside in the corridor alone.

This pattern of neglecting their surviving daughter while lavishing attention on the strange child repeats itself throughout the film. Once, the mother and Hyotarou are so occupied with their lively game of batting a paper ball back and forth that she even forgets to breastfeed Asako.

Neither parent appears to be completely stable, as the mother clings proudly and desperately to her delusions regarding Hyotarou, and the father confesses that he spends his time watching their neighbour’s son, who looks exactly like him.

“When you don’t visit, I need to look at his face,” the father says. “If only you could be with us all the time, then we wouldn’t have these silly thoughts.”

But, as inexplicably as Hyotarou came, he eventually has to leave. On his final night with them, his mother gives him a pair of socks – the same pair she dressed his body in at his funeral.

“Wear these to go back today,” she pleads.

One hand on his father’s shoulder, he lifts his feet one at a time for her to slip the socks on and fold the tops down to his ankles, then runs out of the gate and towards the river, never to return.

Is he truly the reincarnation of the couple’s dead son? Or simply a figment of their imagination? It doesn’t help that on one evening, as they’re relaxing on the porch after dinner, their neighbour comes crashing into the garden. Frantically, he asks them if they’ve seen his missing son, and when the couple turn around, the boy has vanished.

In true Kore-eda tradition, this film asks many more questions than it gives answers – and despite being under an hour long, will haunt you for many days after.

 

Rating: 4/5
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Writer: Saisei Murō (writer)
Starring: Ryo Kase, Yuri Nakamura, Takeru Shibuya
Release Date: 9 Jul 2011 (part of the Japanese Film Festival)
Runtime: 51 mins
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English