Nobody Knows

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hamid reza g An admirable film with very beautiful plans and a perceptive director who has been able to create realism with a film. The film is very effective with few dialogues but with strong images and little and wise music. The film is in praise of childhood and the story of four children who become victims in an irresponsible and passive world. Although the story of the film is sad, the strength of the film is that it is full of effort, sacrifice and hope. At the end of the film, the image shows the four children happily going home after shopping, and the image is fixed. Although the director wants to make us think of children and childhood, I personally like the movement of children in the depth of the picture towards the future. The movie should be seen and enjoyed. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 04/10/23 Full Review william d There's no conclusion here, no redemption, just four kids living in misery for 2+ hours. Judging by its high RT score many people find that poignant and compelling. I just found it depressing. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Alvise F Inspired by 1988 news story "Sugamo child abandonment case", Kore-eda openly denounces a social issue that has been hidden for too long. He leaves out the dark and gloomy nature of the incident (that includes a rape), creating a delicate and mature film transposition more involved, closer and intimate compared to the previous works. An example of this direction are the more frequent medium shots and close-ups. Core of the story is the individualism and infantilism of adults, the indifference of society, the lack of empathy and "humanism" ("jindōshugi" 人道主義). As in previous works, we find also the Japanese aesthetics of "mono no aware" (物の哀れ), that enhances the "pathos of things", or rather, the "empathy toward things". Some examples are the fingernail polish that symbolize the maternity, but also the plants as growth and return to nature. It is precisely in this return to primitivism that the four brothers find a way to survive on the edges of society, ignored by all. However, children never lose their dignity, even in the face of the toughest tragedy. Materialistic and frivolous adults, like the mother and her lovers or the alleged fathers and gambling, are completely in contrast to the naive nature of the protagonists, eternal misfits, but in their purity of soul, honest and right, totally alien to contemporary Japanese society. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 05/22/22 Full Review mike w Fictional cinema verite at a high level of execution. (Shigeru's snoring had to be genuine.) "Nobody Knows" was hard to watch, but I got through it because it was so well made and told such a relentlessly pathetic story. I don't understand Saki's motivation for bonding with the four abandoned siblings, but clues might have been culturally exclusive - the shrine where Akira had his second eye-to-eye encounter with her and the (to me) mysterious objects she dumped into the canal. My lack of understanding might otherwise be due to my deficient observation. I don't know if I'll watch it again because it's so sad. I've now seen three of Hirokazu Koreeda's movies. "Shoplifters" is my favorite, so far. I continue to be amazed by the prolific and proficient use of child actors in Japanese and Korean movies. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member A bit arthouse and a bit too long but no escaping how attached you feel about these kid's fate. A very different story loosely based on a bunch of abandoned children in Japan back in 1988. Well made but not always entertaining. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review dave s If Nobody Knows isn't the saddest movie ever made, it is certainly on the shortlist. Unlike manipulative Hollywood films like The Notebook and The Way We Were, the movie doesn't rely on swelling violins and other cinematic trickery to tap into the emotions of the viewer. Nobody Knows tells the story of four children, age five to twelve, living in an apartment in Tokyo who've been abandoned by their mother with the clear instruction that only the oldest boy is allowed to leave the unit in order to purchase supplies. Simultaneously tragic and inspiring, the film feels real, for lack of a better term. Using a handheld camera almost exclusively and featuring raw, seemingly unscripted performances, Nobody Knows feels like a documentary, the reality of which gives it its impact, which is tremendous. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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