KotokoThe desperate struggle of raising a child on your own is harrowing enough without the added burden of mental illness. Kotoko is a psychological drama about a young single mother--named Kotoko (Cocco)--who suffers from paranoid delusions brought on by schizophrenia. Most times, she sees a "double" of someone who either attacks her or is in mortal danger, and she is incapable of distinguishing which one is real between the two. Her life is falling apart: she is forced to relinquish custody of her infant son to her sister, and she cuts herself to confirm her existence. Only when she sings is she able to stifle the pain, if only for a short, precious moment.
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Kotoko was directed and co-written by Shinya Tsukamoto, who also plays the role of Seitaro Tanaka, an author who approaches Kotoko and claims to be concerned with welfare because of her behavior on a train. Japanese folk musician Cocco is Tsukamoto's collaborator, who provided the original story and is credited for the film's art direction. (The two have worked together before; she also provided music for Tsukamoto's earlier film, Vital.) This rare combination of talent creates a film that is very personal and more intimate than most. Kotoko is shot on digital video and the cinematography has a raw, cinéma vérité aesthetic that forces the audience to be uncomfortably close to the emotionally unbalanced protagonist. In one of the most intense scenes, Kotoko is having a breakdown and Tanaka desperately tries to hold her close, while telling her over and over again that she's "fine". The naturalistic cinematography is deliberate and unsettling, because the audience is constantly unsure if one scene of dread is real or just another delusion, since Kotoko's perspective is always at the forefront. Kotoko is a highly imaginative woman; after she first realized that she couldn't trust herself in the outside world, she creates elaborate playsets for her son, including one from a pile of dirt she brought into her cramped apartment. Yet her imagination is too often squandered; she works a menial job where she underlines text with colorful pencils, and has no outlet for her parental anxieties and psychological distress. Movies about mental illness have a predilection to make the afflicted into villains or disturbed individuals removed from most people's experiences. Kotoko depicts a woman who could be any one of us, struggling to get by from day to day. After her son is taken from her, a counselor offers up empty and patronizing consolation, a symbol for how people on the outside tend to look down on the mentally ill. Kotoko has family, and her visits with her sister's family are portrayed as loving encounters devoid of any overt clues marking her as unstable. Yet in spite of this, there is a sense that she is being treated as an outsider, even among her family. The film does not explore Kotoko's upbringing to any great degree, but if it had, one has to wonder just how much of her illness went untreated or outright ignored by her parents. The only exception is an ominous prologue that shows a young girl dancing happily and wildly on the beach--a pleasant scene cut short with cries of anguish.
Kotoko pushes away anyone who comes close to her with a misanthropic cruelty. On a date with a stranger, she tires of his small talk and stabs him in the hand with her fork while sneering at him; she repeats this performance for Tanaka. Does she push people away so that she won't hurt them worse later, or is this just another aspect of her illness tagging along with her hallucinations? Kotoko comes across as lonely; other than her son, she seems to want little to do with another living soul. It would seem that Kotoko is compelled to do this because she fears that if she becomes close to someone, that they will invariably be taken from her, or leave her. Considering how her son's father isn't even mentioned or named in the film, one has to wonder if this is what happened to her after she became pregnant. Tanaka shows her a level of kindness and affection that is far beyond what any other reasonable person would offer someone they hardly knew. This ultimately breaks down her defenses, and she finally shows her appreciation when--in a moment of vulnerability--she sings for him, although she actually gives her performance right into the camera. Kotoko is a woman who is on a completely different wavelength than everyone else, a quality which is more of a curse than a blessing. Her suffering is similar to that of Bess McNeill and Selma Ježková from Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark respectively, and Kotoko shares more than a few stylistic similarities with those films. Kotoko desperately wants to be a loving mother, and to protect her son from the dangers of the world, despite her mind compelling her toward violence. Kotoko leaves its audience with questions about what it means to experience life when your senses cannot be trusted and seems predisposed to destroying you. But more importantly, it asks us to sympathize with those afflicted with mental illness, because they are still people like us--mothers, musicians, and more.
Recommended for: Fans of a compelling psychological drama about paranoid schizophrenia, single motherhood, and loneliness as a part of the human condition. Cocco gives a raw and vulnerable performance as the eponymous Kotoko, and her soulful singing punctuates the harrowing film with crucial moments of serenity and calm.
Kotoko pushes away anyone who comes close to her with a misanthropic cruelty. On a date with a stranger, she tires of his small talk and stabs him in the hand with her fork while sneering at him; she repeats this performance for Tanaka. Does she push people away so that she won't hurt them worse later, or is this just another aspect of her illness tagging along with her hallucinations? Kotoko comes across as lonely; other than her son, she seems to want little to do with another living soul. It would seem that Kotoko is compelled to do this because she fears that if she becomes close to someone, that they will invariably be taken from her, or leave her. Considering how her son's father isn't even mentioned or named in the film, one has to wonder if this is what happened to her after she became pregnant. Tanaka shows her a level of kindness and affection that is far beyond what any other reasonable person would offer someone they hardly knew. This ultimately breaks down her defenses, and she finally shows her appreciation when--in a moment of vulnerability--she sings for him, although she actually gives her performance right into the camera. Kotoko is a woman who is on a completely different wavelength than everyone else, a quality which is more of a curse than a blessing. Her suffering is similar to that of Bess McNeill and Selma Ježková from Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark respectively, and Kotoko shares more than a few stylistic similarities with those films. Kotoko desperately wants to be a loving mother, and to protect her son from the dangers of the world, despite her mind compelling her toward violence. Kotoko leaves its audience with questions about what it means to experience life when your senses cannot be trusted and seems predisposed to destroying you. But more importantly, it asks us to sympathize with those afflicted with mental illness, because they are still people like us--mothers, musicians, and more.
Recommended for: Fans of a compelling psychological drama about paranoid schizophrenia, single motherhood, and loneliness as a part of the human condition. Cocco gives a raw and vulnerable performance as the eponymous Kotoko, and her soulful singing punctuates the harrowing film with crucial moments of serenity and calm.