Movie Review: Before We Vanish

Before We Vanish *** / *****

Directed by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

Written by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Sachiko Tanaka based on the player by Tomohiro Maekawa.

Starring: Masami Nagasawa (Narumi Kase), Ryûhei Matsuda (Shinji Kase), Hiroki Hasegawa (Sakurai), Masahiro Higashide (Pastor), Kyôko Koizumi (Doctor), Kazuya Kojima (Detective Kurumada), Atsuko Maeda (Asumi Kase), Ken Mitsuishi (Suzuki), Shinnosuke Mitsushima (Maruo), Takashi Sasano (Shinagawa), Mahiro Takasugi (Amano), Yuri Tsunematsu (Akira Tachibana).

 

I have never quite understood people who always seem to complain that any movie over two hours is too long (especially since they also seem to be the people who brag about binging a TV series in a weekend, but I digress). Films are more than just a plot delivery device that should try and get it over with as quickly as possible. But if you are one of those people, I’ll say right off the top that Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Before We Vanish is not a film for you. It runs two hours and ten minutes, and spends much of that time meandering from place to place, content to take its take, even repeat itself if necessary, and simply hang out with these characters. There are moments of explosive violence to keep things interesting – but in many ways, this movie is content to meander with its big ideas and flawed execution. It’s actually one of the more charming things about the film.

 

The concept of Before We Vanish is fascinating. Three aliens have crashed landed on earth, and each has taken over the body of a person (all of them in Japan, oddly enough). The aliens cannot understand humans – and are particularly interested in concepts. The way they learn these concepts is to basically steal them from people by touching their foreheads – the aliens then understand the concept, but the human no longer does. Two of these aliens end up with human guides – Shinji (Ryuhei Matsuda) is returned to his wife Narumi (Masami Nagasawa), who doesn’t understand why the husband she thought had abandoned her is acting so strange – but their bond strengthens over time. The other two end up with Sakurai (Hiroki Hasegawa) a cynical reporter who first sees these two as a good story, until he realizes they’re not joking. Unlike Shinji, these two aliens don’t really develop an emotional connection with their guide – they’re more like psychopathic children.

 

The concept of the movie is fascinating enough that it really does keep you interested in what’s happening for probably longer than it should. As we see people relieved on concepts like family, ownership and work, they all basically act the same – they have been unshackled from the drudgery of their lives, and the things holding them down. When Sakurai tries to rally people to his cause late in the film – giving a big speech to a square full of onlookers, who look at him with blank eyes, you may well wonder if perhaps the aliens are not right, and we need to be wiped out. But Kurosawa doesn’t feel that way – and although the end of the movie gives way to cheap sentimentality – it’s effective just the same.

 

Ultimately, I don’t think that Before We Vanish is quite as clever or original as it thinks it is – or then it feels like for part of its runtime. We are enslaved by our beliefs, and would be happier if we threw them off, and lived more freely, we get it. And yet, in the end it is another concept – love- that will eventually save humanity – a concept that even a seemingly emotionless alien can relate to. No matter how much this movie meanders (and boy does it) it ultimately end up precisely where you expect it to. It’s another interesting film from Kurosawa, who has been somewhat adrift the past decade or so, since moving away from his earlier J-horror (with Cure and Pulse, among others) with Tokyo Sonata – which was essentially the same thing, without the horror. His output since then has been all over the map. This is one of his strangest films, and while I don’t think it’s one of his best, it may well be one of his most memorable in that time. Even if the destination is well known, the journey is interesting.