SELECTED PRESS ������������������� by Eugene Hernandez (September 15, 2008) Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s «Still Walking,» from Japan, was selected as the best film at the Toronto International Film Festival in a poll of film critics and bloggers conducted this weekend by indieWIRE. The story of a family coming together on the anniversary of a son’s passing, the film is Kore-Eda’s latest after the acclaimed «Nobody Knows.» «Still Walking» edged out Ramin Bahrani’s «Goodbye Solo» and Darren Aronofsky’s «The Wrestler,» two new American films produced and financed independently. More than 30 writers - ranging from AO Scott and Roger Ebert to B Ruby Rich and Karina Longworth, were surveyed. The group singled out «The Wrestler» star Mickey Rourke as the best actor by wide margin, while Agnes Varda’s «Les Plages d’Agnes» was chosen as the best documentary at the festival. TORONTO ‘08 by Anthony Kaufman (September 6, 2008) Similarly full of lived, intimate movements and largely more successful, «Still Walking» - the new film from Hirokazu Kore-eda («After Life,» «Nobody Knows») - must be the festival’s most accomplished international premiere thus far. Up until the last few minutes, «Still Walking» - a sort of Ozu-ian «Yokohama Story» about the return of two grown-up children and their families to their elderly parent’s house for a 24-hour visit -- shows Kore-eda in top form. The film elegantly captures the tensions between its affectionate cast of characters, which include a stern bitterly retired grandfather who rejects his middle-son, the seemingly sweet grandmother whose cruel streak provides the film some of its most potent moments and the upbeat daughter (played by girly-voiced Japanese wonder YOU) who wants to make things right. Kore-eda breathes life into nearly every shot with a master’s specificity: bringing power to silent spaces and employing the daughter’s two young children -- who run in and out of the frame and can be constantly heard on the soundtrack -- as an incessant reminder of the sweet familial chaos that always exists just outside of view. Kore-eda’s script is as solid as his shots: There are tossed-off lines that reveal multitudes, a near pitch-perfect balance of the sober and the lightweight, the cynical and the hopeful, and skillfully handled parallel stories about deaths in the families. The film only falters at its ending: If Kore-eda had only concluded the film with the kind of precision that he brings to his compositions and dialogue, «Still Walking» would be a masterpiece about mortality, and the complex process of dealing with its overwhelming impact. Still Walking (Aruitemo, Aruitemo) Dan Fainaru in Toronto 09 Sep 2008 18:15 Dir. Hirokazu Kore-Eda. Japan. 2008. 114 mins. Adapted by Kore-Eda from a novel he wrote, evidently inspired by the death of his parents a few years back, Still Walking is a quiet, almost whispered picture in which nothing much seems to happen and may well be a naturalistic version of Ozu’s Tokyo Story for our times. Less stylized, purified and painful than Ozu’s masterpiece, Kore-Eda offers a slow, subdued, realistic portrait of the relations between three generations, condensed within the space of a one-day family encounter. There is guilt, in more shapes than one; a certain degree of veiled greed; whimsical sadness and a constant touch of irony that prevents the plot from sinking into a self-accusatory, morbid piece. Though both Cannes and Venice have looked at it and passed, probably because they found it is too uneventful for their audiences, this is a touching, intelligent and nostalgic picture, an elegy for the opportunities we all had and missed to be closer to our parents when they most needed it. Certainly not the type of film to fill up multiplexes on a weekend, this is by no means a minor picture as it has been suggested in some quarters, and deserves the full attention of festivals and art houses. The Yokoyama family, grandparents, children and grandchildren, gathers to commemorate the death of their older son, killed in a tragic accident 15 years ago. All the events taking place in the course of the day and night they spend together are the most expectedly banal and invariably predictable. It is only when looking carefully between the lines that myriad details spring up. Each character is calmly observed, but never allowed to display great emotion or to air intimate thoughts. And yet everything filters out, for the benefit of those who have the patience to look behind appearances. Kore-Eda’s cast offers splendid performances all through, with Kiki Kirin’s mother (a part inspired by the director’s own mother) a delight to behold – humorous, moving, affectionate and suggesting a slight but intensely human streak of cruelty that not many people would avow to. The fluid, unobtrusive camera work handles with equal ease moments of intense intimacy, the look in a child’s eyes or the silent expression of a couple about to go to sleep while also making the best of glorious open-air landscapes. Kore-Eda’s own cutting, despite a few soft spots here and there, remains faithful to the calm, reflective mood of the whole piece. By DENNIS HARVEY Fri., Sep. 12, 2008, Following the more outre concepts of several features including «After Life» and «Nobody Knows,» writer-helmer Hirokazu Kore-eda seems to be scaling back with the writ-small «Still Walking,» which chronicles 24 hours in the life of a mildly dysfunctional family. But its modest surface belies the depths of a lovely seriocomedy that concisely lays bare all kinds of uncomfortable dynamics in seemingly casual, low-key fashion. Just released theatrically in Japan, this gem should attract interest from discerning offshore fest, arthouse and tube programmers. The Yokohama clan gets together every year at the elderly parents’ seaside-town home to commemorate an eldest son’s death. It’s an occasion not looked forward to by all -- or perhaps anyone -- despite general efforts at good cheer. Particularly reluctant are surviving son Ryota (Hiroshi Abe), who feels the brunt of his elderly parents’ thinly disguised disapproval of his art-restoration profession and his new bride, Yukari (Yui Natsukawa). She’s anxious to impress the in-laws, and have them accept as family her child (Shoehi Tanaka) by her late first husband. But Ryota’s biggest complaint is that his blunt-spoken mother (Kirin Kiki) and, in particular, his gruff father (Yoshio Harada) still treat him like a failure compared to shining-star Junpei, who died saving a drowning child. All their hopes were pinned on him; even long dead, he’s the yardstick by which Ryo is judged. No such expectations are laid on daughter Chinami (You, the squeaky-voiced abandoning mother in «Nobody Knows»), a garrulous flake whose amiable car-salesman husband (Kazuya Takahashi) and two rambunctious children don’t bother brooding over any family conflicts, past or present. Food preparation, meals, child play, stolen one-on-one chats and other routine events fill the hours, with Chinami and her family driving home at day’s end while Ryo and his wife and stepson stay the night. One notable occurrence is the visit by the boy Junpei rescued, now a corpulent, rudderless young man whose squirming discomfort the still-grieving parents take unseemly pleasure in each year. Despite such unpleasant moments -- while allowing them their good sides, Kore-eda doesn’t shrink from painting the elders just as Ryo sees them -- «Still Walking» is often quite funny, and suffused with warmth even amid discordant notes. This family’s relationships are compromised, probably for keeps, but not broken. A bittersweet yet stubbornly upbeat fade is well earned before a spoken coda and epilogue scene that spell out sentiments already implicit in pic’s subtly revealing body. Though almost exclusively limited to unremarkable interactions inside the parents’ home, the feature never feels meandering or claustrophobic in the least. Credit is due to the unobtrusive but invaluable contributions of Yutaka Yamazaki’s lensing and Kore-eda’s editing as much as the latter’s incisive writing; another spare but perfect element is Gontiti’s acoustic-guitar score. Perfs, including juvenile ones, are just right. Bottom Line: A subtly nuanced family drama that resonates long after its hushed ending. By Maggie Lee Sept 4, 2008, 06:50 PM ET Venue: Toronto International Film Festival TOKYO, Japan -- «Still Walking» unfolds almost in real time as three generations gather for a weekend. The course of the day is so uneventful and the narration so deceptively simple that it feels as cozy as flipping through a family album. Only discerning cinephiles could tell it is the result of a flawless script. When «Nobody Knows» debuted in Cannes in 2004, director Hirokazu Kore-eda became a name everyone knows in the festival circuit. His return to home drama is a meditation on how children, or rather life, can never live up to expectations. The unostentatious artistry is reminiscent of Ozu’s «Tokyo Story,» but his documentary-style film language is refreshingly contemporary. The film has its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. Sibling rivalry, an indispensable theme in family melodrama, is at the heart of «Still Walking.» But how can a son compete for his parents’ love and attention with a rival who is dead? Ryota (Hiroshi Abe) brings his wife Yukari and stepson Atsushi to his parent’s house for the 15th memorial ceremony of his brother Junpei. Joining him is sister Chinami and her family. Behind the conviviality, grief, regret and resentments rise and fall as softly as a whisper.