Kazoku shinema

This is a self-reflexive narrative movie about a filmmaker who wants to make a 'reality' docu-drama about a (relatively) typical family in Japan. He has convinced a former porn actress to volunteer her family to be the subjects, and they half-willingly go along. The film follows the film crew's shooting of the film in which all of the family's dirty past is uncovered through a variety of emotionally charged "half-scripted, half ad-libbed" scenes.

Of course it is all fiction, but the premise of it being filmed as a documentary is actually pretty convincing and entertaining. You almost begin to feel that the characters are in real life really who they are portraying in the film. Although the film centers on the non-pornstar daughter as the main protagonist, it is the characters of the mother and father who really steal the show. You can't help but feel both pity and disgust for the two of them as each of their faults are unabashedly thrown out on the table and exposed for everyone to see. Yet their past mistakes are revealed in a way that also exposes their humanity. As these selfish individuals grow old, it perhaps becomes easier to try to forgive them and hope that the future will be better.

The film probably teeters a little too much on the melodramatic in certain scenes, but even as a fake reality show, it's a lot more entertaining, interesting and realistic than all of those reality shows we are presently being bombarded with. (7/10)