The story revolves around four young siblings with different fathers, but the same deluded and irresponsible mother, Keiko (You). The eldest child is Akira (Yûya Yagira) a boy who must grow up fast as the neglectful Keiko leaves him in charge of Kyoko (Ayu Kitaura), Shigeru (Hiei Kimura) and Yuki (Momoko Shimizu). At first Keiko only disappears for a few days at a time, but days become weeks and eventually months with no sign of her returning. Meanwhile Akira must continue to look after his brother and sisters by himself. Eventually their water, electricity and gas are turned off and the children must turn to inventive alternatives like using public toilets and a local water pump to bathe. They grow plants on the balcony of the small flat they live in and use candles to see at night. Prior to their mothers disappearance (which is left deliberately ambiguous for a time, did a terrible fate befall her or has she completely shrugged off her responsibility to the children?) she instilled a set of values in the children which affect their actions, they’ve never been to school, the children have been taught by Keiko, or more often are teaching themselves, they must keep their noise levels down or risk being discovered and forced to move homes again; the film opens with Akira and Keiko travelling on a train, seemingly by themselves, only Akira’s tender stroking of his large suitcase hints at the revelation that Shigeru and Yuki are being transported inside their luggage out of sight of the authorities implying that her two youngest children are not known to the government and would be taken off her if discovered. All but Akira must stay in the flat and out of sight; again on the basis that separation will follow if they’re discovered.
Realism and naturalism are clearly of paramount importance to Koreeda on this particular project, the film is primarily composed of hand held imagery, giving it a pseudo-documentary feel and the entire project was filmed in chronological order over the course of an entire year, this being an obvious advantage for a film about children as we witness the four central characters physically grow and a particularly funny scene in the middle of the film when Akira’s voice has broken and his sister asks if he has a cold. The sense of realism is one of the films greatest strengths, the films concept is of course sensational but the way childhood is handled in the film will resonate with audiences across the globe; there are many scenes which perfectly invoke memories from childhood: for example an early scene when their mother is returning home, Kyoko the eldest daughter goes to the front door and holds the handle for a few seconds only to open it just as Keiko gets back; another scene sees the younger boy Shigeru opening the balcony door, knowing full well that he isn’t allowed to step outside, he manufactures a motive to do so by ejecting a part of his toy deliberately outside forcing him to leave the flat to retrieve it. The logic of childhood is very simple and Nobody Knows captures this logic effortlessly, an adult might not bother with this rather pointless justification, but a child will often find a way to legitimately break the rules. Another early scene sees Keiko come home drunk and acting like a clown with Yuki and Shigeru whilst Akira and Kyoko continue to clean up, Kyoko muttering to Akira “she’s drunk again”. The younger children don’t recognise this fact and are just happily amused by their mother’s comic behaviour, anyone who can recall their parents being “happy drunks” when they were young will instantly recognise Yuki and Shigeru’s uninformed reaction to her behaviour. Arguably what makes this aspect of the film so successful is the subtle yet undeniably effective hand held imagery as mentioned, but crucially the film is shot from a child’s point of view. This is not a unique technique, Carol Reed’s brilliant adaptation of Graham Greene’s The Fallen Idol (1948) follows a similar path. However by mixing the extremely naturalistic performances, and the movements of the children, Koreeda fulfills the world that he created by not diverging from the children’s point of view. The film’s world becomes the children’s world and the camera accentuates this with perfect precision. Nobody Knows also stands as a rite-of-passage film, Akira being the films protagonist who is shouldered with an immense responsibility for a child his age, and must constantly fight with his desire to have a normal adolescence, he begins to hang out with a group of lads his own age and as a result the upkeep of the flat begins to falter. The lads eventually reject him from the group because his home smells like rubbish; Akria starts to lose his temper with his siblings and neglects their welfare. There is a reason why children don’t look after other children for a prolonged period of time - they are incapable to doing so as there is only so much emotional burden a child can take. It might be a child’s ultimate fantasy to be left alone in the house all the time, not go to school, not have to worry about bedtime or how many sweets they’re allowed to eat, but Nobody Knows gives this fantasy a slow puncture and then watches as the air escapes. This merciless unraveling of childhood within Nobody Knows has one very clear influence, beyond the true life story that the film draws from, and that is another Japanese classic: Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies (1988). Koreeda’s film even contains subtle references to the great animation. Once again it shows that Koreeda is deeply steeped within the best of Japanese cinema.
Nobody Knows’ impact is maximised by a set of outstanding performances from the leading actors, You as the mother is particularly impressive, she also appears in Koreeda’s Still Walking in a very different role, her distinctive husky voice makes her instantly recognisable and she throws herself into the part with vigor and enthusiasm. She paints Keiko as a woman who never really grew up, she’s just one of the kids and in fact is less mature than either Akira or Kyoko. But more impressive than You are the performances from Yagira, Kitaura, Kimura and Shimizu who prove once again that not all child actors are stiff or self-conscious. The largely improvised scenes with the children are stunning to watch and at no point do we ever falter in our belief that the events of the film are really occurring before us. The films improvised and organic nature is evident in the lack of a clear story; Nobody Knows is a waiting game, when will the children be discovered? Will it be before something goes dreadfully wrong? But if the answer to either of these dramatic questions seem obvious to you then you need to think again as Koreeda refuses to conform to conventional story structure, instead over the course of the films 140 minute runtime we follow the life and times of the children, we get to know each of them as individuals via a semi-episodic structure meaning that the through-line dramatic questions disappear into the background. It has been argued that the film is too lengthy (a complaint also leveled at several of his other fiction films (over half of which push the two-hour mark), personally I had no difficulty with the films length and the two hours and twenty minutes Koreeda demanded of me as an audience member felt more like an hour and a half. More importantly when the climax eventually came I wasn’t ready for it; this is a rarity in modern cinema - a film you never want to end. This reaction is entirely due to how successfully Koreeda recreates a universal memory of childhood paradoxically within a story situation that is anything but universal. This achievement in disparate filmmaking is what makes Koreeda such an impressive talent on the world stage, he makes films unlike any of his Japanese contemporaries, even Ozu or Naruse would have struggled to unite these incongruous facets with such poise and grace. M.Dawson |
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Nobody Knows is the most widely seen of Hirokazu Koreeda’s films, a possible reason for this is its dramatic premise: Children in Jeopardy. This premise is almost always guaranteed to peak wider interest, David Simon credited the success of The Wire’s fourth season to this factor especially amongst American audiences. There is something universally engaging about placing innocent youngsters in an alien and potentially dangerous situation, Nobody Knows is centred around children being alienated and in unusual and uncomfortable situations, worldwide cinema audiences can settle into the film and follow the protagonists without needing further explanations of Japanese history or culture, if the lead is without understanding then the audience simply have to follow the film rather than bringing any additional knowledge to the proceedings. Koreeda’s other films can be viewed as revisionist deconstructions of culture and country, however Nobody Knows is an exception, the children can be understood and watched by anyone who was a child with little more than a healthy memory and a little empathy for their plight. 
At the time of its UK release Sight & Sound gave the film a fairly negative review, primarily criticising the plot as deeply contrived; I disagree with this assessment of the film as the first act in particular is laced with sub textual exposition which hints that the family has been separated in the past and this event informs Akira and the others respect and obedience to their mothers rather unorthodox approach to parenting; likewise if the children know no different, then how would they ever have the faculties to challenge this incarceration and isolation from the rest of the outside world. Akira and Kyoko start to question these rules, expressing an interest in going to school (they are a few years older than Shigeru and Yuki and perhaps starting to realise that their way of life isn’t normal) but even when it seems almost certain that their mother will not be returning they still do not report themselves to the authorities as they believe in all likelihood it will mean that they will never see their younger siblings again. With no knowledge of how Japan’s social services operate it’s hard to discuss how realistic the film is in terms of how long the children remain undetected, but I can quite easily envision the same situation occurring in an equivalent area of the UK. Helpfully the film opens with a caption describing the events of the film as: “based on a true story”, Sight & Sound criticised the use of this opening caption as a way of getting past the plot contrivances, but once again I do not agree with this assessment. In fact if any criticism could be offered up in relation to the caption that so irked Sight & Sound is that the film did not stick to the infamous story that it was based on. The incident – known as the affair of the four abandoned children in Sugamo – was in fact even more upsetting and tragic than those events so smoothly presented within the film. This story made major headlines in Japan in 1988 and became infamous within the country, the Japanese audience would have been aware of the case, less than 20 years earlier, and would have brought these expectations to the cinema. While the film is not an exact recreation of what occurred, in fact it changes major possible plot points for dramatic affect and other plot points to make the film more palatable; it is indeed ‘based’ on a true story. By not becoming a slave to the exact events, Koreeda manages to make the film more lyrical and poetic rather than what could have become a rather gruesome morality tale. Surely informing the viewer of the basis of the tale only serves to enhance our empathy for the characters involved, it’s easier to empathise with the situation when we know there is grounding in reality. 
On top of the central narrative crux there are a number of episodic narrative stretches that make the film unforgettable and ironically deconstructs even the title of the film. Throughout the film people do find out about the children’s plight, there are structural repetitions to a convenience store where the owner and shop assistant interact with Akira on a regular basis, Akira visits two of the father’s of the respective children and asks for money, the landlord’s wife and most definitely the character of Saki. Saki, a girl who is subtly brought into the story by small hints at her troubled background, is clearly aware of the situation with respect of the children. She herself is probably not much older than Akira, but Koreeda makes her old enough that she should know better. Saki adds an extra dimension to the simplistic tale on offer and makes the film more explicitly a coming of age drama as opposed to a child’s view of hardship. Akira and Saki have a comfortable relationship at first which is confronted by the situation that they find themselves in. One scene in particular involving a trip to karaoke bar could have been made lurid in the hands of a lesser talent but Koreeda’s assured footing makes it more melancholic than anything else. Saki’s relationship to the children is handled wonderfully and it is a tribute to the skill of the plotting and the brilliance of the writing that you never for one cease believing in her as real character. Koreeda is clearly playing with the title of the film, Nobody Knows is obviously meant to strike an ironic chord with the audience and it is a firm indictment of the other characters within the film and arguably an indictment of the vagaries of modern life. Just as Grave of the Fireflies was a searingly anti-War film, Nobody Knows feels like Koreeda’s criticism of modern cities and modern life.
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