Beijing Watermelon

Look, it's been a little bit since I watched an Obayashi, which I've actually begun ranking, and I felt like I needed to get back into it.

Nearly every shot of this movie is just so beautiful, full of life and bursting with all of these amazing details.

This man's such a dumbass, but you kind of have to love him for how stupid he is. But his stupidity is a part of his kindness, and although you're kind of forced to wish that he would show more kindness to his family, I could never disagree with the fundamental idea that it's always right to help someone who's in need.

It's not that he's an asshole, really, it's that this film is about the realities of personal charity. If you always help, you'll always be behind. People in your life will go through undue hardship just to make sure somebody else doesn't, and they will resent you sometimes. But it's also the sort of thing the world can't keep going on without. It's a beautiful thing.

I'm in love with these fourth wall breaks, beginning when Bengal explains that they were not able to travel to China for the filming of the scenes set in China.

"Don't think so hard. You look like the Great Buddha." "The Great Buddha?" "Actually, more like a father." "What do you mean?" "Because you're kind."

alt. quote: "There are people who call Shunzo odd, but he's just doing what's right. These days it's the rest of society that's odd."

Look, it's been a little bit since I watched an Obayashi, which I've actually begun ranking, and I felt like I needed to get back into it.

Nearly every shot of this movie is just so beautiful, full of life and bursting with all of these amazing details.

This man's such a dumbass, but you kind of have to love him for how stupid he is. But his stupidity is a part of his kindness, and although you're kind of forced to wish that he would show more kindness to his family, I could never disagree with the fundamental idea that it's always right to help someone who's in need.

It's not that he's an asshole, really, it's that this film is about the realities of personal charity. If you always help, you'll always be behind. People in your life will go through undue hardship just to make sure somebody else doesn't, and they will resent you sometimes. But it's also the sort of thing the world can't keep going on without. It's a beautiful thing.

I'm in love with these fourth wall breaks, beginning when Bengal explains that they were not able to travel to China for the filming of the scenes set in China.

"Don't think so hard. You look like the Great Buddha." "The Great Buddha?" "Actually, more like a father." "What do you mean?" "Because you're kind."

alt. quote: "There are people who call Shunzo odd, but he's just doing what's right. These days it's the rest of society that's odd."

Japanese, Chinese, friends. Japanese, Chinese, friends.

Some of the my favorite naturalistic filmmaking (up until the last 20 minutes of course) I’ve ever seen, Obayashi was a genius!!

I do wish that Bengal was more mindful of his families needs too though, it was sad watching Michi suffer how she did

Japanese, Chinese, friends. Japanese, Chinese, friends.

Some of the my favorite naturalistic filmmaking (up until the last 20 minutes of course) I’ve ever seen, Obayashi was a genius!!

I do wish that Bengal was more mindful of his families needs too though, it was sad watching Michi suffer how she did

There could not be a better synopsis for the message Beijing Watermelon is trying to get across than this simple extract from one of the final scenes. In this brief, casual sequence lies the key to understanding the meaning of the entire movie.

In fact, it is through people and experiences that our minds are shaped, it is through mistakes and misfortunes that we grow. Obayashi managed to capture this sense of empathy, hope and change in a natural, human way — chaotic gatherings, lasting bonds, selflessness.

⚠️There may be spoilers from now on⚠️

Even though Michi, married to a famous Japanese grocer, is initially hesitant about being too kind to the Chinese students, worried about sales (as she reveals herself), by the end of the movie, it is clear that she has changed her mind.
In her speech, Mother (as she gets called by the fellow students) is extremely grateful to them, for showing her what broterhood really means and how similar we all are, regardless of social and/or cultural background.

Everything will be fine, this film whispers. It is worth mentioning that in the scene I referenced in the beginning of my review, Toru, the couple's son, is reading the line off the English book he previously asked for.
When he did, however, his father Shunzo was slowly starting to neglect his family's needs; plus, he seemed to be struggling financially.
This seemingly irrelevant detail hints at an incredibly optimistic outlook.

The ending was extremely satisfying, did not expect him to break the 4th wall at all!
In addition to that, in spite of not being fond of the "Do ut des" rethoric, it was absolutely fitting.

In conclusion, I must admit that, personally, I caught myself getting distracted or even bored at times, maybe discouraged by the repetitiveness of some sequences.
It was quite hard for me to feel connected with the story — until it wasn't.

There could not be a better synopsis for the message Beijing Watermelon is trying to get across than this simple extract from one of the final scenes. In this brief, casual sequence lies the key to understanding the meaning of the entire movie.

In fact, it is through people and experiences that our minds are shaped, it is through mistakes and misfortunes that we grow. Obayashi managed to capture this sense of empathy, hope and change in a natural, human way — chaotic gatherings, lasting bonds, selflessness.

⚠️There may be spoilers from now on⚠️

Even though Michi, married to a famous Japanese grocer, is initially hesitant about being too kind to the Chinese students, worried about sales (as she reveals herself), by the end of the movie, it is clear that she has changed her mind.
In her speech, Mother (as she gets called by the fellow students) is extremely grateful to them, for showing her what broterhood really means and how similar we all are, regardless of social and/or cultural background.

Everything will be fine, this film whispers. It is worth mentioning that in the scene I referenced in the beginning of my review, Toru, the couple's son, is reading the line off the English book he previously asked for.
When he did, however, his father Shunzo was slowly starting to neglect his family's needs; plus, he seemed to be struggling financially.
This seemingly irrelevant detail hints at an incredibly optimistic outlook.

The ending was extremely satisfying, did not expect him to break the 4th wall at all!
In addition to that, in spite of not being fond of the "Do ut des" rethoric, it was absolutely fitting.

In conclusion, I must admit that, personally, I caught myself getting distracted or even bored at times, maybe discouraged by the repetitiveness of some sequences.
It was quite hard for me to feel connected with the story — until it wasn't.

I'm still a novice at Obayashi even as his films have become more accessible in the West following his passing. My favorite film of all time for years now has been his most well-known title, the midnight phantasmagoria that is House, but each time I've caught up with his work I've found myself impressed to find a new side of his directorial voice that isn't captured in most cinephiles' impression of him. Sada injected psychosexuality, Labyrinth of Cinema made his anti-war sentiments more explicit and tender, The Little Girl Who Conquered Time brought a youthful innocence, and His Motorbike, Her Island shows his romantic bona fides, but Beijing Watermelon is something fairly novel for him to me. See, even with all these films, there has always been a sense of Obayashi as a fantastical visionary, a man with a cinematic bag of tricks from freeze frames to coloring to looping sequences, all creating a dreamlike element to otherwise standard stories. Beijing Watermelon in contrast is almost neorealist in approach, completely naked in its presentation of a grocer's selflessness with a group of Chinese exchange students (save for the ending but we'll get to that). Truthfully, I was worried for a fair amount of the runtime that I was misled; not by the lack of distinctly Obayashi flourishes but by the universal notion in all the films' reviews that this was a heartwarming and humanist story. I don't think it's that simple, at least not for the majority of the central hour of the film. At first, our central grocer and his wife (Haruzo & Michi) are at odds with how to approach a meek Chinese student who claims the vegetables on sale are too expensive. Michi suggests a game of rock, paper, scissors, which the student wins which allows him to gather a supply of vegetables for cheap. He tries to recreate this discount and is at first rebuffed by the grocer until the student falls ill from malnutrition. A community of exchange students arrive both to help nurse their friend to health and thank the couple for their generosity. It's at this point that the roles switch and almost fall into polar opposites as Haruzo becomes destructively selfless. At first, he offers to drive a student interested in architecture around Japan, neglecting the store for an afternoon, then two, then nearly everyday. When a student has issues paying for rent, he goes to the landlord and begs them to make an exception in the name of "Japan-China friendship" (which becomes a mantra for Haruzo) and even steals from his store's register to fund them. This support in both food and finance comes at such a detriment to his family and their store that it almost becomes hard to be sympathetic for Haruzo's charity. Perhaps the nadir of this generosity comes when he gathers a handful of coins and accidentally includes Michi's necklace. Rather than admit his mistake, he claims it was a gift which Michi tearfully mourns. It takes the store threatening to close amid tax investigations and Haruzo's health scare for the students to band together and help the couple they've lovingly referred to as Mom and Dad. And then we hit the finale. It's no spoiler to say that when we see a title card for Beijing in June 1989 followed by a white screen something has changed. Haruzo addresses the camera as his actor, Bengal, and explains that this portion of the film would have shot on location in China to recreate the reunion of Mom and Dad with the now dozens of prosperous students they've supported, a truly touching moment of acts of kindness being rewarded with a community who return the favor by surprising the couple with 80,000 yen. But they couldn't do that. Real life has caught up to this recreation of a true story and has spoiled its ending for reasons unforeseen to Obayashi and the actual couple and students at its center. So, Bengal talks to us about how they've artificially recreated these moments. A dining hall in Japan to stand in for the location in Beijing, a few props to recreate the Great Wall, and a mock airplane and airport instead of the real deal. It's a finale caught off guard and having to improvise, but it's also fatefully a reminder of how important its central message is. This sort of cross-cultural friendship is clearly vital to Obayashi even amidst a narrative that at times is so willing to sacrifice everything for these students that it threatens to destroy a family in the process. And yet, importantly, Michi never blames the students. She never truly resents them or their needs because she understands that they aren't demanding anything but are being given by a man who views this as his life's mission. Even as some neighbors and friends disparagingly refer to their foreignness, there isn't a sense in the household that the students are to blame because they aren't. Even at their lowest moment, when Haruzo has fallen ill and seems intent on selling the store, Michi politely refuses the students' offer to help out. It's that sense of dignity that keeps the film afloat, that makes the second act's outer reaches more worth it. I wasn't expecting this sort of stripped-back neorealism from Obayashi but he seems just as comfortable in this mode as he is in sci-fi influenced narratives or decades-spanning journeys through Japanese cinema. It took me a while to get into this but by the end it had won me over and shown Obayashi once again as one of cinema's most vital and versatile voices.

I'm still a novice at Obayashi even as his films have become more accessible in the West following his passing. My favorite film of all time for years now has been his most well-known title, the midnight phantasmagoria that is House, but each time I've caught up with his work I've found myself impressed to find a new side of his directorial voice that isn't captured in most cinephiles' impression of him. Sada injected psychosexuality, Labyrinth of Cinema made his anti-war sentiments more explicit and tender, The Little Girl Who Conquered Time brought a youthful innocence, and His Motorbike, Her Island shows his romantic bona fides, but Beijing Watermelon is something fairly novel for him to me. See, even with all these films, there has always been a sense of Obayashi as a fantastical visionary, a man with a cinematic bag of tricks from freeze frames to coloring to looping sequences, all creating a dreamlike element to otherwise standard stories. Beijing Watermelon in contrast is almost neorealist in approach, completely naked in its presentation of a grocer's selflessness with a group of Chinese exchange students (save for the ending but we'll get to that). Truthfully, I was worried for a fair amount of the runtime that I was misled; not by the lack of distinctly Obayashi flourishes but by the universal notion in all the films' reviews that this was a heartwarming and humanist story. I don't think it's that simple, at least not for the majority of the central hour of the film. At first, our central grocer and his wife (Haruzo & Michi) are at odds with how to approach a meek Chinese student who claims the vegetables on sale are too expensive. Michi suggests a game of rock, paper, scissors, which the student wins which allows him to gather a supply of vegetables for cheap. He tries to recreate this discount and is at first rebuffed by the grocer until the student falls ill from malnutrition. A community of exchange students arrive both to help nurse their friend to health and thank the couple for their generosity. It's at this point that the roles switch and almost fall into polar opposites as Haruzo becomes destructively selfless. At first, he offers to drive a student interested in architecture around Japan, neglecting the store for an afternoon, then two, then nearly everyday. When a student has issues paying for rent, he goes to the landlord and begs them to make an exception in the name of "Japan-China friendship" (which becomes a mantra for Haruzo) and even steals from his store's register to fund them. This support in both food and finance comes at such a detriment to his family and their store that it almost becomes hard to be sympathetic for Haruzo's charity. Perhaps the nadir of this generosity comes when he gathers a handful of coins and accidentally includes Michi's necklace. Rather than admit his mistake, he claims it was a gift which Michi tearfully mourns. It takes the store threatening to close amid tax investigations and Haruzo's health scare for the students to band together and help the couple they've lovingly referred to as Mom and Dad. And then we hit the finale. It's no spoiler to say that when we see a title card for Beijing in June 1989 followed by a white screen something has changed. Haruzo addresses the camera as his actor, Bengal, and explains that this portion of the film would have shot on location in China to recreate the reunion of Mom and Dad with the now dozens of prosperous students they've supported, a truly touching moment of acts of kindness being rewarded with a community who return the favor by surprising the couple with 80,000 yen. But they couldn't do that. Real life has caught up to this recreation of a true story and has spoiled its ending for reasons unforeseen to Obayashi and the actual couple and students at its center. So, Bengal talks to us about how they've artificially recreated these moments. A dining hall in Japan to stand in for the location in Beijing, a few props to recreate the Great Wall, and a mock airplane and airport instead of the real deal. It's a finale caught off guard and having to improvise, but it's also fatefully a reminder of how important its central message is. This sort of cross-cultural friendship is clearly vital to Obayashi even amidst a narrative that at times is so willing to sacrifice everything for these students that it threatens to destroy a family in the process. And yet, importantly, Michi never blames the students. She never truly resents them or their needs because she understands that they aren't demanding anything but are being given by a man who views this as his life's mission. Even as some neighbors and friends disparagingly refer to their foreignness, there isn't a sense in the household that the students are to blame because they aren't. Even at their lowest moment, when Haruzo has fallen ill and seems intent on selling the store, Michi politely refuses the students' offer to help out. It's that sense of dignity that keeps the film afloat, that makes the second act's outer reaches more worth it. I wasn't expecting this sort of stripped-back neorealism from Obayashi but he seems just as comfortable in this mode as he is in sci-fi influenced narratives or decades-spanning journeys through Japanese cinema. It took me a while to get into this but by the end it had won me over and shown Obayashi once again as one of cinema's most vital and versatile voices.

Partially based on a true story, Beijing Watermelon is warm and uplifting in its portrayal of the feedback loop of community begetting kindness begetting community. Shunzo’s kindness acts as an anchor for several Chinese exchange students. While this kindness builds tension with his family, it also serves as an example to them, with the film examining a full gamut of emotions around different notions of sacrifice in the behalf of others. It’s nice, overall visually muted compared to the other Obayashi films I have seen, but little touches give the film such a strong identity. I’m obsessed with how the camera moves on a pivot across rooms, for instance. Instead of presenting unreality as reality in the film’s final moments, Obayashi opts to acknowledge the shortcomings of film, which in turn only serves to make the film feel more genuine.

Partially based on a true story, Beijing Watermelon is warm and uplifting in its portrayal of the feedback loop of community begetting kindness begetting community. Shunzo’s kindness acts as an anchor for several Chinese exchange students. While this kindness builds tension with his family, it also serves as an example to them, with the film examining a full gamut of emotions around different notions of sacrifice in the behalf of others. It’s nice, overall visually muted compared to the other Obayashi films I have seen, but little touches give the film such a strong identity. I’m obsessed with how the camera moves on a pivot across rooms, for instance. Instead of presenting unreality as reality in the film’s final moments, Obayashi opts to acknowledge the shortcomings of film, which in turn only serves to make the film feel more genuine.