Survival Family

Eiga Sai 2018

Japanese Film Festival

Greenbelt 1, Cinema 2

A family of 4 - a couple + their teenage children embark on a journey of survival as Japan and later it seems the entire world experience a power outage, which also affected computerized and battery enabled products. 

In a highly industrial country like the land of the Rising Sun, power plays a major part in everything which affects the citizens' daily life. From cars, trains, airplanes to water supply, elevators in high rise buildings even the biometric machine to enter office buildings. Nothing is operational, turning lives upside down as they come to grips with a reality mired in darkness and chaos.

What started as a power interruption soon extends for days even months, thus the Suzuki family decide to travel to the countryside (to the hometown of the mother) on their bicycles with very bare essentials to tie them over. Hordes of people walking on expressways, most of them biking to distant places, anywhere but Tokyo which has been transformed into a ghost town. 

Yet I have to say, it is only in Japan that you will see people being so calm and accepting of such a bleak situation. No looting, no erupted violence - well it wasn't shown in this film, anyway.

The Suzuki family with an office worker dad, a housewife mom, a bratty daughter and an aloof son  - soon enough bond together during their 'road trip'. In a society where everyone have their noses down and busy with their smartphones, it was refreshing to see a family actually talking and doing activities together without any distractions.

It is mostly a light comedy which aims not to take the serious occurrence too seriously. The Suzuki family encounters well meaning strangers on the road, fleeting moments as they eventually part ways. They eventually settle in this gorgeous coastal town sans electricity but plenty of activities like weaving, gardening and actual conversations with each other to occupy their time.

 A good film that shows us how we tend to be too dependent on technology and its effects on modern society. Aloofness, lack of bonding moments, lost of face to face communication taking a toll on our lives. It could have been set in any country and we would all be able to relate to our dependence on technology, nowadays.

P.S.

The global power outage lasted for two and a half years and it was blamed on solar flares or an approaching comet.