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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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