Bright FutureJust because someone can have visions of the future doesn't mean that they're prepared to handle life in the present. That's certainly the case for Yuji Nimura (Joe Odagiri), a young laborer who struggles to maintain his professed optimism about life in the face of humiliation, frustration, and tragedy. When Nimura's friend, Mamoru Arita (Tadanobu Asano), is arrested for murder and imprisoned, it eventually leads to Mamoru's father, Shinichiro (Tatsuya Fuji), befriending and employing Nimura. But Nimura continues to struggle with his own sense of displacement, even during his growing bond with Shinichiro.
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Written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Bright Future is a drama about misfits in society, people who are either discarded--much like the electronic junk which Shinichiro salvages and repairs, and Shinichiro himself--or who never feel like they fit in at all and cannot help but screw things up despite their best intentions, like Nimura. Nimura and Mamoru both work for a grating boss, who presses them into laboring on personal chores like moving a desk into his daughter's room, and coercing Nimura into loaning him a CD, then snatching it away with lightning speed as he slides it across a table to present it. Unquestionably, their boss, Fujiwara (Takashi Sasano), is an insufferable blowhard who pretends to bond with the young men in order to exploit them, but his and his wife's eventual fate to be murdered in cold blood is far from acceptable. Mamoru is shortly thereafter arrested for the crime, and confesses to committing the murders; what is implied later is that he did it to intercept his friend, Nimura, from doing the same thing. It isn't immediately clear at first, but Mamoru is a real friend to Nimura, looking out for him and guiding him with secret hand gestures, aware that his junior friend has some kind of mental imbalance and is incapable of living his life successfully without help. In fact, Nimura discovers the bodies of Fujiwara and his wife after entering their house uninvited, armed with a metal pipe, determined to reclaim his CD of all things. Still, one wonders about Mamoru's actions and what other motives were at stake, and this is answered in the appearance of Shinichiro, his estranged father. Shinichiro prepares to take on the financial responsibilities of his son's legal expenses, even though it is evident he is barely getting by. The discovery that his son is doomed to spend the rest of his life in prison forces him to try to reconnect with his other distant son, Fuyuki (Ryô Kase), who treats his father coldly and confesses to abandoning his paternal surname. The loneliness felt by Shinichiro is emphasized in a scene where he drives in his truck and sings a song he might have sung to Mamoru as a boy, the camera shot split down the middle, the passenger seat notably empty.
When Nimura approaches Shinichiro at Mamoru's funeral, they bond over their mutual loss, attempting to rebuild what is missing in their lives by working together. But desperate as Shinichiro is to understand the young man, Nimura is almost abjectly incapable of synchronizing with the world. When his sister and her boyfriend take him out one evening, he wears rags, and is seemingly unaware of his appearance. After a falling out with Shinichiro, the same sister invites him to work at her company as a copy boy, which leads to him getting involved with a gang of misfit punks, all of whom break into the company and rob the cash box with Nimura's aid. And after Mamoru leaves his pet to Nimura to care for, a venomous jellyfish, Nimura's frustration at his friend leads him to accidentally knock over the tank, freeing the jellyfish which has since become acclimated to fresh water. Perhaps out of guilt or a perceived sense of responsibility, Nimura takes to trying to care for the escaped jellyfish in the most absurd way: dumping gallons of brine shrimp into the canals of Tokyo, hoping the jellyfish will eat them. Oddly enough, this proves to be successful, and the jellyfish prodigiously multiply. Nimura is also incapable of coping with the frustrations which grip him. When he hears a news story about an attack on a young girl by a jellyfish, his response is to destroy the antenna for Shinichiro's shop. Nimura seems cursed to fail at everything he tries, although he claims to be blessed with the ability to see future events in his dreams, something Mamoru clearly believed was worth addressing, a gift the film only touches on periodically, as though it is challenging us to accept his gift on faith, with one notable exception. At one point, Nimura awakens from a dream, clearly disturbed, describing his apocalyptic vision to Shinichiro. In the dream, he describes that he was walking through a "forest or desert", the wind so intense he had to lean into it. But when we see a vision ourselves of what we can presume Nimura witnessed, we see him walking through the barren streets of Tokyo, as though some kind of calamity has since occurred, the implication of the film being that the introduction of the venomous jellyfish has somehow upset the balance of the ecosystem, and as always, Nimura has somehow managed to leave things in a worse state than before. As this is the only vision of Nimura's we are privy to see, it could be asserted that it is more or less a manifestation of his guilt at so many perceived failings, and his sense of failure is a self-perpetuating cycle, keeping him trapped in a state of failure. For the young man who claimed to be such an optimist from the start, he is beset by despair on nearly all sides.
Bright Future has a distinct look, a style similar to cinéma vérité, and looks as though shot on handheld camcorders, giving the film an authentic feel, as though capturing the real lives of Nimura and more. The characters and settings are all highly genuine, and even though some actions are outrageous, the documentary-like feel gives these moments extra weight. When Shinichiro yells at Nimura for his immaturity, forcing the young man to run out of the shop, the argument feels imperfect and natural as a result. Although the gang of young punks which Nimura encounters are rude and irresponsible, one could envision a group of street kids like them out in some big city, the kind which most folks would give a wide berth. The contrast between this authenticity and the artifice of the movie is apparent when the bioluminescent jellyfish have multiplied exponentially, and begin their exodus out of Tokyo for the sea. They were digitally added after the fact into the film, resembling alien creatures in a human drama like Bright Future. This film is one where we always feel like we are observing the characters. In Bright Future, we feel like voyeurs into the lives of these characters, as though we are sitting right there with them. This sentiment is exploited in one moment when Mamoru, preparing to end his life in prison, looks right into the camera and bids us farewell, leaving his own version of a suicide note for Nimura behind, their secret sign. The title--Bright Future--doesn't even show up in the film until the very end, where it is superimposed over a tracking shot of the street gang aimlessly wandering the streets, acting tough. It is an ironic juxtaposition, as the punks seem to be anything but bright, but nonetheless are the future. The implication is that their recklessness and irresponsibility are a bit like an infestation, like the jellyfish implied to run rampant if Nimura's dreams are to be believed. The title is referenced at the start as the less world-weary Nimura plays an arcade game, and narrates that his dreams have always been of a "bright future", one of hope and goodness; unfortunately for Nimura, all dreams must give way to a harsh awakening.
Recommended for: Fans of a psychological drama which conveys its deeper meaning through the implications of events rather than excessive exposition; it is both mysterious and yet very natural, not unlike a jellyfish.
When Nimura approaches Shinichiro at Mamoru's funeral, they bond over their mutual loss, attempting to rebuild what is missing in their lives by working together. But desperate as Shinichiro is to understand the young man, Nimura is almost abjectly incapable of synchronizing with the world. When his sister and her boyfriend take him out one evening, he wears rags, and is seemingly unaware of his appearance. After a falling out with Shinichiro, the same sister invites him to work at her company as a copy boy, which leads to him getting involved with a gang of misfit punks, all of whom break into the company and rob the cash box with Nimura's aid. And after Mamoru leaves his pet to Nimura to care for, a venomous jellyfish, Nimura's frustration at his friend leads him to accidentally knock over the tank, freeing the jellyfish which has since become acclimated to fresh water. Perhaps out of guilt or a perceived sense of responsibility, Nimura takes to trying to care for the escaped jellyfish in the most absurd way: dumping gallons of brine shrimp into the canals of Tokyo, hoping the jellyfish will eat them. Oddly enough, this proves to be successful, and the jellyfish prodigiously multiply. Nimura is also incapable of coping with the frustrations which grip him. When he hears a news story about an attack on a young girl by a jellyfish, his response is to destroy the antenna for Shinichiro's shop. Nimura seems cursed to fail at everything he tries, although he claims to be blessed with the ability to see future events in his dreams, something Mamoru clearly believed was worth addressing, a gift the film only touches on periodically, as though it is challenging us to accept his gift on faith, with one notable exception. At one point, Nimura awakens from a dream, clearly disturbed, describing his apocalyptic vision to Shinichiro. In the dream, he describes that he was walking through a "forest or desert", the wind so intense he had to lean into it. But when we see a vision ourselves of what we can presume Nimura witnessed, we see him walking through the barren streets of Tokyo, as though some kind of calamity has since occurred, the implication of the film being that the introduction of the venomous jellyfish has somehow upset the balance of the ecosystem, and as always, Nimura has somehow managed to leave things in a worse state than before. As this is the only vision of Nimura's we are privy to see, it could be asserted that it is more or less a manifestation of his guilt at so many perceived failings, and his sense of failure is a self-perpetuating cycle, keeping him trapped in a state of failure. For the young man who claimed to be such an optimist from the start, he is beset by despair on nearly all sides.
Bright Future has a distinct look, a style similar to cinéma vérité, and looks as though shot on handheld camcorders, giving the film an authentic feel, as though capturing the real lives of Nimura and more. The characters and settings are all highly genuine, and even though some actions are outrageous, the documentary-like feel gives these moments extra weight. When Shinichiro yells at Nimura for his immaturity, forcing the young man to run out of the shop, the argument feels imperfect and natural as a result. Although the gang of young punks which Nimura encounters are rude and irresponsible, one could envision a group of street kids like them out in some big city, the kind which most folks would give a wide berth. The contrast between this authenticity and the artifice of the movie is apparent when the bioluminescent jellyfish have multiplied exponentially, and begin their exodus out of Tokyo for the sea. They were digitally added after the fact into the film, resembling alien creatures in a human drama like Bright Future. This film is one where we always feel like we are observing the characters. In Bright Future, we feel like voyeurs into the lives of these characters, as though we are sitting right there with them. This sentiment is exploited in one moment when Mamoru, preparing to end his life in prison, looks right into the camera and bids us farewell, leaving his own version of a suicide note for Nimura behind, their secret sign. The title--Bright Future--doesn't even show up in the film until the very end, where it is superimposed over a tracking shot of the street gang aimlessly wandering the streets, acting tough. It is an ironic juxtaposition, as the punks seem to be anything but bright, but nonetheless are the future. The implication is that their recklessness and irresponsibility are a bit like an infestation, like the jellyfish implied to run rampant if Nimura's dreams are to be believed. The title is referenced at the start as the less world-weary Nimura plays an arcade game, and narrates that his dreams have always been of a "bright future", one of hope and goodness; unfortunately for Nimura, all dreams must give way to a harsh awakening.
Recommended for: Fans of a psychological drama which conveys its deeper meaning through the implications of events rather than excessive exposition; it is both mysterious and yet very natural, not unlike a jellyfish.