Cycling Chronicles: Landscapes the Boy Saw

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Movie: Cycling Chronicles : Landscapes the Boy Saw
Romaji: 17-sai no fûkei - shônen wa nani o mita no ka
Japanese: 17歳の風景
Director: Koji Wakamatsu
Writer:
Producer:
Cinematographer
Release Date: October 31, 2004
Runtime: 89 min
Language: Japanese
Country: Japan

Plot

Veteran filmmaker Koji Wakamatsu delivers a surprisingly lyrical yet piercing critique of Japanese society and history in Cycling Chronicles. Wakamatsu has long been driven by a sense of political and social outrage, and a sympathy for those who have been marginalized or suppressed by dominant history and institutions. Inspired by a true story of a teenager who killed his mother and then cycled aimlessly from Tokyo to Aomori, Wakamatsu shows his protagonist (a largely wordless, engaging performance by youngster Emoto) biking through beautiful landscapes but discovering the ugly side of Japanese history as he is propelled towards his own catharsis. In mostly improvised scenes, Emoto meets a series of older citizens with deep and sometimes shocking experiences to recount: fishermen forced by government regulations to operate outside the law to survive; an elderly Korean who was brought to Japan as a comfort woman and then abandoned by her husband. Perhaps the most powerful encounter is with an old man remembering his dead brother, a Japanese soldier who was a war prisoner in Mongolia, while condemning the atrocities perpetrated by Japan during the war and questioning current geopolitical issues. Few Japanese filmmakers today are prepared to confront so directly the past that continues to shadow Japan's relations with her neighbors, and fewer still are willing to explain how the dysfunctions and violence in Japanese society can be traced to these highways and byways of Japanese history. Wakamatsu is one of those very few. -- Roger Garcia