'Ikinai' hits home with deadpan humor

By Dini Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): Ikinai has a premise which may be seen as dismal: 12 bankrupt businessmen plot a collective suicide so that their families can cash in on the insurance money.

But amid the blood and gore churned out by studios in Hollywood and Hong Kong, this excellent first feature from Japanese director Shimizu Hiroshi actually tells one of this year's most life-affirming stories.

Debt and death connect the passengers on the Sunshine Club tour -- literally, the tour to end all tours -- but the morose men share another predicament. Society imposes on Japanese husbands and fathers a prohibition of emotional catharsis, when even facing gargantuan responsibilities, that a clandestine suicide becomes the only way out. It takes a "fun, fearless female," 20-year-old Mitsuki, who accidentally stumbles onto the deadly expedition, to coax the fatalists out of their resignation.

And she does so brilliantly, her Minnie Mouse voice squeaking with so much glee that the others begin to imitate her childlike ways. Mitsuki is not much of a character in her own right, but she is a mirror reflecting the men -- she represents what they should see and feel but cannot. This movie is not about relationships between men and women. It is about life, and lives wasted by societal alienation.

Eventually Mitsuki and her unlikely new friends team up for pastimes famously Japanese: karaoke, origami, picture taking and sightseeing. Not once does the camera wince at the silliness on- screen. Instead it joins in the fun, painting the vista in sunny technicolor. But the colors, blindingly saturated, are also flat -- much like the lives these despondent men endure.

In fact, the cinematography is so brilliant that oftentimes it silently tells the story. Yet refreshingly, unlike most films that pan up and down and across spectacular scenery, forgetting what it was focusing on in the first place, Ikinai's camera work does not overreach. Often the framing is blunt and static. Much of Ikinai looks ordinary, much like real life.

Tour guide Aragaki (played by Dankan, who is also the screenwriter), is the closest Ikinai gets to an antagonist. He has a face as static as the cinematography: sullen and still. His deadpan eyes flicker the agony shared by the entire crew, but the film imparts all this anguish subtly. Aragaki is the film's father figure, scolding his children when they rebel, but also caring for them when needed. He offers one man sleeping pills so death will strike painlessly.

Ikinai (meaning not to live) is indeed macabre, but you will find yourself laughing even during the painful scenes of attempted suicide. As a longtime assistant of director Kitano "Beat" Takeshi, renowned for his turbocharged graphically violent productions (Violent Cop, Sonatine), Hiroshi has learned well the art of narrating violence. But Hiroshi foregoes the gore and opts for more delicate cruelties. The random pacing also keeps audiences off guard. Like a child's steps, it meanders and hops before jumping to its destination.

And Ikinai laughs at itself, just like a child would. Ikinai pokes fun at its characters, but never maliciously. It has a deadpan humor that is at times inane, but in the silliness, one glimpses humanity. As a portrait of Japanese society and Japanese men, Ikinai is tender, poignant, heartbreaking. Even when the film careens to its surprise denouement, it offers an appreciation of life unseen in most movies. The final shot shows the gloomy Aragaki finally laughing -- and barring convention and good taste, so will you.

Ikinai belongs to the Fun, Fearless Female Films section of the Jakarta International Film Festival, and will be playing at Graha Bakti Budaya TIM on Sunday, Nov. 21, 1999, at 7:30 p.m.