Strawberry Shortcakes

Strawberry Shortcakes is a film that revolves around four independent yet vulnerable women growing up in contemporary Tokyo. To give you some idea, I would describe describe it as The Joy Luck Club meets Lost in Translation. For women especially, Japanese society has become a fast paced environment to try and adapt to because of developments that have changed their place in society in the last sixty years or so. Women played a predominantly subservient role in Japan as it was pre World War II and the feudal system gave them very little say in the way in which they would be allowed to live their lives (though at least they are security). However since US Occupation and the influx of western values that have insidiously weaved their way into the hearts and minds of the newer generations, women have accomplished a lot more as autonomous beings, but have also been left to pick up the pieces of their shattered identities and try and fit together dusty old jagged pieces with new cutthroat ones. Many women fail at this and get left off the bullet train going 200mph into a future where old and new must gel together, resulting in a superwoman that can both have the dinner ready and juggle the stock-market.

Hitoshi Yazaki the director of Strawberry Shortcakes is trying to show us in a very quiet, slow-paced, easy-going way that the heroines of his film all have the same thing in common and that is loneliness. This factor is made so much more apparent by subtle aesthetic techniques such as the soft ticking of a clock in the background or the sound of the Shinkansen rushing by at frequent intervals which emphasize the passing of time and the holding pattern of life in the film. Shouldn’t it be odd that the film deals with themes of loneliness and alienation in one of the most buzzing cities in the world? Everything looks as though it is on top of each other with the Shinkansen running right through small neighbourhoods and not far over the heads of people. If anything you get an overwhelming feeling of cosiness running through these shanty town areas of Japan, where even at night things are lit up to give a feeling of life running through it. So why is it that everyone feels so detached and alone and on the constant search for a loving relationship?

The first character we are introduced to is Satoko (Chizuru Ikewaki) whose main objective is to fall in love. She wants this so badly that her introduction shows her clasping at the feet of an ex-lover begging him to take her back. Unfortunately in rock n’ roll style he kicks her away and tells her to get lost leaving her in a puddle of tears but the stronger for it, as she shortly gets up and vows success. Secondly we have Akiyo (Yuko Nakamura), the most listless and despondent of the women. Her entrance into the film shows her shifting the lid off her coffin-like-box for a bed, only to reach for her pack of cigarettes and begin the day by lighting up from within her confinement. It has much impact as before we even get a glimpse of her, we see puffs of smoke being blown out of her box that is centred in her dingy little flat. Heaven’s Gate is the name of a prostitute agency that employs both Satoko, as the receptionist; and Akiyo, as an experienced hooker.

The next woman along is Chihiro (Noriko Nakagoshi) who has a job working as a temp, serving tea and making copies of documents for her superiors. She will take the role of polite obedience with aspirations of being a loving housewife. She is roommates with Toko (Kiriko Nananan), the final female and the one with the artistic talent, also making her the housebound, workaholic with a certain disorder that provides some of the more unsettling shots in the film. Their pairing is a little strange, though I suppose convenient as Toko can make a mess which the flakey Chihiro is happy to clean up.

The film aims to give an insight into the casual, everyday activities of people who commit to the same old routine of getting up and going to work, having a meal or performing some kind of idiosyncratic ritual. The stasis of the film is emphasized by such things; examples being Toko and her painting methods, Chihiro and her lover, Akiyo meeting her friend in the pub and Satoko, who preys to God at her mini shrine for love and then cracks open a beer which she drinks whilst watching the moon from her balcony. The film beautifies these rituals by showing them in their simplicity and is stylistically similar to the films of Kim Ki Duk; most notably Bin-Jip, Samaritan Girl and The Isle. Like Ki Duk, Yazaki likes to play around with the contrast of strong images with extended periods of silence allowing things to sink in and provoke a more powerful response.

The film is about showing how people fill the emptiness in their lives. Sotoko is desperate to fill the void with love and Akiyo longs to have a relationship with an old friend but in the meantime just has sex for money to satiate her lust for death. Chihiro wants convention and to keep active, spending her free time trying to appease some lacklustre male and Toko dedicates herself to her work which she values more than anything else. Worthlessness seems to be etched into the characters, because as the viewer, it is hard to ignore the fact that their fates are likely to be nothing more than those of objects, used for the purpose they provide rather than living for their own human spirit where maybe happiness can be found. The only time Akiyo is not just going through the motions is when she is having a beer with her old friend in the pub. In these scenes she is like a different person, the rest of the time she is like a zombie and her coffin-box bed which seemed quirky at first, we see is more of an extension of her lifeless existence.

However the passing shots of the city lit up at night give an impression of infinite possibility and grandeur. The many picturesque shots of the landscape seem to establish a connection between the women and their environment. One such instance of this is when they are shown to be connected to each other by the moon as the camera cuts to each woman looking up at it and wishing for similar things and then cuts to the next. The film has a way of dissipating the loneliness by showing that they are all doing the same thing and that even though they are far apart, they are connected. Another more artificial way of creating this connection is television. In the film The Tokyo Tower (which is responsible for broadcasting TV and radio signals), a symbol of communication, is often included as a passing shot in the film which seems most appropriate as a contrast to the fact that Strawberry Shortcakes utilises silence (or at least minimal dialogue) to emphasize disconnection. The fact that the Tower is shaped like the Eiffel Tower, a symbol of love and romance also provides a kind of bittersweet irony in that our characters seem to experience everything but romance. Nevertheless, the shots of this wonderful construction, lit up against the night sky are truly amazing, not unlike those used in Lost in Translation. In fact I recommend you see Strawberry Shortcakes if you want a more personal and heartfelt approach to themes that were dealt with in Lost in Translation, of which showed less insight into realistic struggles that city people have, as it was concerned with the foreigner’s perspective of loneliness in Tokyo.