Synopsis
Ayase Shinsuke, a popular writer of a series of girl novels, visits Otaru, the town he grew up in. He meets a strange boy who calls himself by the author's real name.
Haruka, Nostalgia
1993 ‘はるか、ノスタルジィ’ Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi
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Alternative Titles
Haruka, Nostalgy, はるか、ノスタルジィ, Haruka, nosutaruji~i, Haruka, Nostalgia, 하루카, 노스탤지어, 远远乡愁
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Japan
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Japan
20 Feb 1993
- Theatrical
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Haruka, Nostalgia is the first time I've ever strongly disliked an Obayashi film. On a technical level, this film is wonderful. Beautifully, inventively shot. Lovely music from Joe Hisaishi. Incredible locations. Even the script is quite well constructed. But unfortunately, all of these aesthetic and structural elements are being used to paint an infuriatingly unpleasant story revolving around a very unappealing protagonist and his relationship with a young woman who is horrifically referred to as a "child" throughout. In Obayashi's The Island Closest to Heaven, there are uncomfortable hints of a storyline like this, but ultimately he veers away. Here, he dives right in. The whole way through this I kept hoping it would go in another direction. And it…
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25/100
Fucking hell(after two-and-a-half hours of navigating trauma, self-hatred, and the murkiness of nostalgia, this concludes with a sex scene between the forty-something lead and the 16-18-year-old Haruka that's framed as a "spiritual" and "beautiful" event necessary for his healing, and even goes so far as to portray her initiating the encounter. Fuck! Hurts so much worse when considering Obayashi's work as a whole because this runs directly against so much of what he tried to convey over the years, and almost makes me question his intentions as a whole, but with 35 other films from him that I've seen with no hints of problems like this whatsoever, I can only assume/hope this was entirely self-contained in a testament to good intentions with appalling execution. Fuck!!!!)
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Nähere Untersuchungen in the dark alleyways of memory. To remember does not mean to unearth a hidden truth, but to enter a new world of shadows, echoes and co-presences. All those lurid "secrets" are a measure not of objective, but of subjective corruption and to untangle the threads only leads you deeper into a maze in which desire is always already tainted by roleplaying. There's no pureness to reclaim, only the soothing and surprisingly calm clarity of total corruption in the middle of the illuminated forest.
Obayashi's Marienbad, a memory conversation piece that suggests that German idealism might be just as important as a source for his imagemaking as romantic music.
And then you open letterboxd and suddenly this is…
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Is it very inappropriate that one of the most romantic and heartfelt films I've seen in a while contains a de facto lolicon romance crowned with a sex scene between a high school girl and a man in his 40s (the actress was 19 at the time)? It's not just that it portrays people of such age gap having sex that rubs me the wrong way, but the fact it portrays anybody having sex at all.
Sex always kills romanticism for me, and few directors can make it kill romanticism only a little bit instead of fully butchering it. Obayashi is one of them. The sex is muddled up by the idea the girl actually had sex with the younger…
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The scent of sin lies in the act of living. Being forgiven, and acquiring the repose of a cradle that is what we call a birthplace.
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hard to take pleasure in any of obayashi’s filmic talents when he’s delivering a story about an 18 year old girl in love with a 50 year old man. theres an annoying spiritual sex scene. i don’t care for it
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“Poor me I’m a writer with a lot of issues lemme just fuck this kid and reminisce while I excuse all my behaviors with the pains of my youth” The movie in a nutshell
Cry me a fucking river. This could’ve been such a goated and amazing film what the actual fuck was going on inside my mans head using a teenage girl a the lusting object? I get he wanted to showcase the struggles of his past, but jfc don’t use children for that shit. The movie is even self aware at times mentioning the weird Lolita 40yo man trope which imo doesn’t make it better in the slightest. I could go on but I’m not gonna waste more of my already lost time on Haruka Nostalgia wacalaaaaa -
Is it a ‘problematic’ film? I think it is. The depiction of the male sexual fantasy, albeit imbued with the yearning of nostalgia and reconciliation, is largely nauseating in the final act. The established atmosphere is pretentious in this case, especially when compared to films with similar theme of nostalgia Nobuhiko previously handled (for instance, in Lonely Heart or The Discarnates). It sort of reminds me Charlie Kaufman‘s I'm Thinking of Ending Things, I find both of them repellent in an unintentional way. But the worst part is the film being too long, it feels dragging and dragging with bland and non-revelatory disclosure.
Added to: Nobuhiko Obayashi, Ranked
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Beautiful, emotionally resonant filmmaking squandered on a toxic storyline - not without its mitigating positive qualities, but supremely whiffy nonetheless. I didn't need to see a Woody Allen film by Obayashi and I hope he didn't make any more of them.
Hisaishi Joe could make even a Michael Bay movie worth sitting through, though.
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First movie that I actively disliked from Ôbayashi. It's just too creepy and toxic and immensely problematic for me to overlook to appreciate the usual great direction or the music. Extremely disappinted with the movie.