Funuke – Funuke domo, kanashimi no ai wo misero (2007)

Directed by: Daihachi Yoshida | 110 minutes | drama, comedy | Actors: Eriko Satô, Aimi Satsukawa, Kyomi Wago, Hiromi Nagasaku, Masatoshi Nagase, Seiji Nozoe, Shoichiro Tanigawa, Nobumichi Tosa, Kôichi Ueda, Hiroshi Yamamoto, Ryotaro Yonemura, Nahoko Yoshimoto, Koichiro Yuzawa

You have dysfunctional families and dysfunctional families. In the Japanese black comedy ‘Funuke’ we meet a family that is far beyond the dysfunctional. Not only as a family, the Wago family is a messed up mess, also as individual personalities. The eldest sister is a vengeful knife puller, the sister-in-law a good-tempered neurotic, the youngest sister is a drawing talent with an obsessive compulsion to observe, the son a man who once made a catastrophic promise. Father and mother have ceased to function permanently, since they had to deal with a cat and a truck and a blood trail of many meters.

Those characters are the best thing about this already great movie. They are just outside reality, but more like a cartoon character than a caricature. No matter how silly they sometimes behave, you still start to sympathize with these fools, who do their desperate best to make something of life. The fact that they are just not lifelike helps to endure the violence and humiliation they inflict on each other. A bathtub scene at the beginning of the film in particular is barely noticeable, and ensures that the viewer never feels really comfortable again.

Against this violence is a lot of humor, in which especially the sister-in-law plays an important role. As a family slave, she has to deal with a lot, but she undergoes it all cheerfully, nervous and determined. Her actions often have something cartoonish, when she chokes on a bone or when she suddenly suffers from an itchy eye. Yet this family clown is also moving.

To emphasize the slightly surrealistic nature of the family, their world just doesn’t look realistic. The colors are too bright and the compositions too devised to pass for real. And then there are the alienating visual effects, such as the photo of a director starting to speak to the acting sister from a magazine.

All in all, ‘Funuke’ is a strong black comedy, which will make you laugh and cry and occasionally shudder. Beneath all the folly, the film wants to say something serious about family ties, which can never thrive by the grace of blood alone. Anyone who thinks their own family is problematic should check out this ‘Funuke’. When you’re done, you hug your family in tears.