SORDID SECRETS. Hospitalité, a film about the meek owner of a
printing business who takes in a stranger claiming to be the son of a family
friend, only to have his hospitality backfire, is screening as part of the
Northwest Film Center’s Japanese Currents series December 10 and 11 at
Portland’s Whitsell Auditorium. (Photo courtesy of the Northwest Film
Center)
From The Asian Reporter, V21, #23 (December 5, 2011), page 18.
Questions aplenty in Hospitalité
Hospitalité
Directed by Koji Fukada
Screening December 10 and 11
at Portland’s Whitsell Auditorium
By Josephine Bridges
The Asian Reporter
Hospitalité is a film full of questions, and the mystery begins with
the title. Is it hospitality that printer Kobayashi offers Kagawa, who
claims to be the son of the man who financed Kobayashi’s business, though it
is never clear if Kobayashi recognizes him? Is it hospitality that Kobayashi
extends to the zombie-like blonde named Annabelle who purports to be first
from Brazil and then from Bosnia, and who may or may not be married to
Kagawa? And is it still hospitality if coercion and a string of illegal
immigrants are involved?
Set primarily in a printing shop and the residence behind and above it,
Hospitalité often feels claustrophobic, especially toward the end of
the film, when scores of foreigners descend like locusts upon what on the
surface appears to be a quiet family business. There is an ominous quality
as well, in spite of the hot, sunny weather Tokyo and its surrounds are
enjoying, or perhaps suffering, in the course of the film. And it seems as
if everyone except Eriko, Kobayashi’s cheerfully obedient daughter, and
Yamauchi, the printer’s assistant, who falls ill as soon as Kagawa appears
on the scene, harbors a sordid secret.
With his assistant in the hospital, Kobayashi hires Kagawa, who seems to
know plenty about printing, with room and board. Kobayashi’s sister Seiko,
who has recently returned to the household but yearns to go abroad for
reasons she keeps to herself, isn’t happy about this, complaining that
Kobayashi’s new wife Natsuki has taken over her room. Tension in the
household increases as Kagawa moves Annabelle in and she sets out to seduce
Kobayashi while Kagawa accuses Natsuki of embezzling and Natsuki succumbs to
the charms of a musician. If only the troubles stopped there.
Perhaps you have always thought that toothbrushing is underrepresented in
modern cinema. If so, Hospitalité will give you your fill.
Conversations and awkward silences take place in front of the big sink where
family members carry out dental hygiene with ferocious precision. When the
boarders brush their teeth en masse, the effect is similar to calisthenics.
Be sure to note that not everyone holds a toothbrush the same way.
The English language plays a crucial role in Hospitalité. Kagawa,
who notices everything and figures out how to use his observations to his
advantage, wants to know why Eriko calls her stepmother "teacher." When he
learns Natsuki is teaching English to Eriko, he speaks the language to test
Natsuki’s knowledge of it. Annabelle, who sounds like a native speaker of
the language despite her ostensible origins in South America or Eastern
Europe, insinuates herself into Eriko’s lessons and begins to correct
Natsuki’s mistakes.
Last but far from least of the questions Hospitalité raises is the
moral of its eccentric story. This film could certainly be perceived as a
cautionary tale about xenophobia. Although human trafficking takes place,
the foreigners, while they are a distinct inconvenience in such large
numbers, don’t do anything that would incite fear in a rational person. For
the most part they are well-behaved, even helpful and generous. Kagawa, on
the other hand, far from foreign, is clearly a man to fear, especially if
you have any secrets at all. Which brings me to what may be an alternate
moral: The consequences of keeping sordid secrets are not going to be
pleasant.
While Hospitalité concludes in much the same circumstances as it
began, the mess made by the departed hordes of foreigners at a birthday
party for Natsuki, whose birthday it may or may not have been, is only the
first of many messes in need of cleaning up.
Hospitalité is screening as part of the Northwest Film Center’s
Japanese Currents series December 10 and 11 at 7:00pm. Both screenings take
place at Whitsell Auditorium, located at 1219 S.W. Park Avenue in Portland.
To learn more, call (503) 221-1156 or visit <www.nwfilm.org>. |