Ryosuke Hashiguchi | Hush! / 2001

choosing a family

by Douglas Messerli

 

Ryosuke Hashiguchi (screenwriter and director) Hush! / 2001

 

Homosexuality has a long history in Japanese cinema, some of which I have already written about. But this lovely and somewhat frustrating film from 2001 is one of the fullest discussions of the possibilities of a LGBTQ family before marriage and child-adoption were major options, and in that sense, this film enters new, if not radical, territory regarding the Japanese LGBTQ world.

    It begins in Naoya Hase’s (Kazuya Takahashi) apartment before he has met his later companion Katsuhiro. His pickup for the night wakes up, dresses, and attempts to sneak out before Naoya even awakens. But Naoya does get up and offers the man tea or coffee, but even that is too much for he runs off to wherever he might be going. Naoya describes him under his breath: “Jerk!”

    It’s clear already that Naoya would like a relationship, when all he seems to be able to find is one-night stands.

     The camera, follows the likeable Naoya on his bicycle to his job as a dog groomer and animal doctor, where we learn to like him even more given his cherry greeting and caring for each customer and his rapport with the dogs and other pets. Yet no one can stand the lecherous boss, who seems always to be cooking up some new potion for providing his animals and longer life, and lures one dunderheaded woman back into his office so that she can breed her pet Golden Retrievers, the two employing the dogs as an excuse for their own lurid desires, egging the dogs on for sex in front of the woman’s prepubescent daughter.

     We also encounter another of the major characters, Asako Fujikura (Reiko Kataoka), a woman who has perhaps had too much wild and unprotected sex with strangers. She lives in sewer like-conditions in a small room. But it is at the doctor she visits that we learn, as the nameless reviewer for the Japononfilm site summarizes: “She has spent a life of one-night stands that mirror those of Naoya before he meets Katsuhiro, which have left her lonely with two abortions and an ovarian cyst. When the doctor suggests she have her ovaries removed rather than just the cyst, she begins to think about a last chance at motherhood.”

       Still, she is talked into allowing one of her crazy suitors to talk her into sex. She is, after all, constantly lonely, working alone even as a dental technician who in an office back room chisels and molds the teeth the doctors will use as crowns for their patients.

         Suddenly, and a bit too quickly for the viewer to have even assimilated the fact, Naoya has picked up another handsome young man, this one being Katsuhiro Kurita (Seiichi Tanabe), who does not run off in the morning after sex, surprising the loveable Naoya so much that he overfills the coffee strainer.

       We next see them as a couple in a restaurant, Asako overhearing their conversation and noticing their intertwined feet under the table. Hearing the gentle, not yet openly out Katsuhiro speak about children and looking at his large sad eyes, Asako decides then and there that Katsuhiro would make the perfect father for her baby, the one she’s decided will now replace all the failed men with which she has previous filled her life.

       In a sense she is the polar opposite of Katsuhiro, who is constantly polite, demurs to all, is confused about choices, and when aggressive approached chooses silence instead of confrontation. Asako is all outspoken, impulsive action, and soon confronts the couple, insisting that Katsuhiro consider the offer, without any strings attached. She claims she will use a syringe to implant herself; all need provide is the sperm.

     Naoya is outraged at the very idea; gay men were not meant to have children. But, although Katsuhiro naturally is somewhat taken aback by the actions of this aggressive woman, he is clearly intrigued and promises—his usual position on all controversial issues—to think it over.

       Katsuhiro works is a strange hanger-like structure, with a large built-in pond where the engineers, he being the low man on the totem pole, explore with toy boats materials, shapes, and designs of what will become larger ships and sea-going vessels. He spends most of his time in fisherman’s pants wading around in the pool.

       If there is a villain of the piece, it is the secretary/staff-assistant Emi Nagata (Tsugumi) who is under the delusion the Katsuhiro’s kindness and reassurance’s that she is not worthless represent his love for her. She has not only convinced herself that they are a couple in love but that they will soon be married. She even arranges a meeting with the woman she rightfully sees as the aggressor—although completely misunder-standing what Asako wants out of her relationship with Katsuhiro—basically to ward her off. And when that doesn’t work, she meets up with Naoya’s slightly crazy mother, Katsumi (Manami Fuji), who knowing that her son is gay is now fearful that he’s soon going to be demanding an operation, presumably imagining that all gay men eventually become transsexuals.

        We would love to see Katsuhiro simply tell both women to shove off; and certainly Naoya has insisted that his lover tell Asako to look elsewhere for a father for her baby. But to demand that of Katsuhiro is to be quite insensitive to Japanese culture, where young boys are instilled with concepts of respect for their elders, particularly women. And in Katsuhiro’s case, wherein his father was an abusive drunkard, he has become particularly respectful of women life is abused mother. Katsuhiro cannot simply refuse the women their claims, and the result in this comic drama is disastrous, particularly when by accident Naoya picks up his lover’s phone, taking it with him to the office, only to discover he has still remained in touch with Asako, who when he confronts her admits she determined still to persuade him not only to provide the sperm but to be involved with the child rearing, something, she admits, to Naoya, will affect him as well.

      Even worse, Emi has hired a detective to obtain information about Asako, and hands the summary over the Katsuhiro’s brother and sister-in-law. The family, daughter in tow, immediately travel from their city to Tokyo to confront Katsuhiro, as Naoya’s mother also now confronts her son. The mother is insistent that Naoya’s lover is being unfaithful to him with Asado, once more unable to understand their relationship; while Katsuhiro’s sister-in-law (Yoko Akino) is simply outraged that he would consider marrying someone who is uneducated, with two abortions, and a list of sexual partners. She is so worried about how their inheritance will be split, about what she believes is an in-born condition of sexual aberration and ignorance that it doesn’t seem to even dawn on her that her brother is actually in a relationship with Naoya.

     Through all of this Katsuhiro, in complete confusion over the matter, cannot or will not say a word to clear the mess up, and every time Naoya attempts to say anything his loud and insistent mother interrupts with her own mistaken ideas about reality. Finally it is the assertive and brave Asako who attempts to explain that all she really wants is a child, that she is not claiming either man’s love or even involvement with the child’s well-being.

      That shocks the sister-in-law even more, as well as Naoya’s mother, neither of them even able to imagine birth by artificial assimilation. The sister-in-law attempts to explain, using herself as the example, how difficult it is to give birth, how hard it is to raise a child, etc. And finally, she argues that you cannot choose a family, a family what is given you by birth. But is apparent she is a woman who loves to suffer, while her husband, much like his brother, is a forgiving and truly loving being. Only when Asako passes out, does the family jury break up, Katsuhiro’s brother, who apparently has long known of Katsuhiro’s sexuality, secretly telling him to do what he wants and not to follow any family dictates, before he gets in the car with his wife and daughter on their way to visit the nearby Disneyland for the daughter’s sake.

       But that isn’t the end of the horrific events, as Emi shows up, desperate again to talk to the man she is still convinced loves her. This time, as she clings to the willing-to-listen Katsuhiro, Naroya forcibly attempts to break it up, insisting that it is not time to break off all contact. But Emi keeps insisting on talking about it, and Katsuhiro remains willing to listen, until finally, after several attempts, pulls him away for her, Emi threatening suicide.

      By this time, any viewer would also be frustrated by Katsuhiro’s passivity, and the man himself admits that he has never been able to stand up for himself, Naoya suggesting that it is perhaps the time for him to start doing so, admitting who he is and standing proud of his existence.

      A telephone call, however, undercuts even that possibility, as we discover that Katsuhiro’s brother has been hurt in a small accident at Disneyland. Yet, according to the sister-in-law, he is now all right, and they will be returning home.

      Somewhat later that same evening, however, a second call reveals that the brother has died, evidently of the concussion.

      Long after the funeral, which we do not witness, we see Katsuhiro, Naoya, and Asako visiting the lot where the family house (which we have seen in an earlier fragment when Katsuhiro has returned home for a friend’s wedding) once stood. Katsuhiro is disgusted that his relatives could not wait to sell the land, and even his sister-in-law who did not want to leave the house, eventually signed off on the deal, just for the money. It appears none of the “so-called” inheritance went to him.

   The three of them walk along a river, attempting to skip pebbles one by one, across its surface. Only Naroya succeeds. And a moment or so later, in the most moving scene of this work, Katsuhiro breaks down into open sobbing, finally releasing all his pent-up sorrows, anger, fears, and whatever else he has been holding within for years. The others stand off for a while, simply out of respect for his grief, but eventually join him in hugs and gentle strokes of his back.

     Finally, the two men have moved Asado herself into the house, and she now has purchased two large syringes, handing the first to Katsuhiro and the second to Naroya. Naroya asks why he is also receiving one, without missing a beat, she declaring that it is not good to be a single child, and he will father of her second baby.

     We laugh, as the credits reveal, in fact, the faces of two babies. Against the siter-in-law-s logic, these people have chosen to create their own family unit in the manner only they can clumsily create it. But it is surely as healthy as any other such family unit, and far better that what any of them experienced growing up.*

     The title of this wonderful film comes from the accompanying song at the beginning and end of the film, Bobby McFerrin’s beautiful rendition of the American folk lullaby,

 

“Hush little baby, don’t say a word, gonna

 Papa’s buy you a mocking bird,”

 

*A somewhat similar situation occurs in François Ozon’s Time to Leave (Le temps qui reste) of 2004  where an unknown woman approaches the dying hero of this film, explaining that since her husband and her cannot have children, she would like him to be the father. Although here, he does have sex with her, in her husband’s presence. And that is the end of their association, since he is dying. He even forces a breakup with his own previous lover.