“Aristocrats”, an edifying film on the persistent archaisms in today’s Japan

Third feature film by Japanese director Yukiko Sode, Aristocrats plunges us into the hushed mysteries of the Tokyo bourgeoisie, which continues to live according to principles from another age. The director paints a subtle portrait of Japan, still marked by strong social and cultural disparities, between classes but also between the capital and the province. A society where women, whatever their social and geographical origin, must still fight for their emancipation. In theaters March 30, 2022.

Hanako, 27, young and pretty, was born into good Tokyo society. Her family is worried to see her still single at an age considered advanced in the matter in her bourgeois milieu. Everyone therefore gets it into their heads to make her meet men in order to marry her as soon as possible. But Hanako, a shy young woman, has a series of disappointing dates, until the day when a meeting arranged by her brother-in-law ends up hitting the mark. She falls in love on the first date with the charming Koichiro. Very quickly, the young man, of a higher extraction than his, asks her to marry.

At the same time, we meet Miki. She too is young and pretty, but she grew up in the provinces in a modest family and had to give up her studies for economic reasons, for which she had nevertheless made many sacrifices. Having become a hostess, she lives in Tokyo and has a dotted relationship with a young man who is none other than … Koichiro.

Yukiko Sode takes a sharp, yet tender and ironic look at Japanese society today. Through two female characters, one from Tokyo, well-born, the other provincial, from a more modest background, the director shows a face of Japan still marked today by traditions (and not only among the rich). , with watertight borders between the two worlds, with very marked social and cultural fractures and a strong propensity for social reproduction. A society in which women are often still confined to the role of wife and mother, in the service of men.

A world where neither women nor men flourish, locked in a straitjacket and injunctions that are often contrary to their deepest aspirations, like Koichiro, an heir who has no choice but to marry a a “conforming” young girl and to enter politics, like all the men of the family for generations.

However, a wind of freedom blows on this story, carried by Hanako’s musician friend, impervious to the injunctions of her environment, and by Miki’s provincial friend, determined not to depend on anyone. The two young women have made the choice of transgression and independence, embarking Miki and Hanako on the path to emancipation.

Aristocrats offers a beautiful palette of female and male characters, main and secondary, served by the subtle interpretation of the actors. Adapted from a novel, the film is divided into chapters and unfolds in a slow rhythm, which makes room for silences, things left unsaid, pain contained, joys held back, or sometimes released (“You talk loudly!”says Miki to her happy friend celebrating their new professional association in a café).

The staging plays on contrasts to support the point: harsh light and great depth of field to mark a brutal and down-to-earth reality for some, subdued light, reduced depth of field, as in a bubble, for others. The camera films the places, the meals, the transport, very different, according to the environment in which the characters evolve, up to the bodies, which the traditions have modeled to better comply with conveniences: for some curved backs, heads and eyes lowered, restrained laughter, and for others noisy bodies, relaxed or even neglected.

The camera also films a city suffering from gigantism, in reality divided into districts like small juxtaposed villages in which societies live in a vacuum, each attached to its codes, its rites, impermeable to each other. “Your universe resembles my campaign”, Miki tells Hanako as they watch the city from the balcony. That day, when Hanako leaves Miki’s modest apartment, she decides to cross the city on foot, thus opening the door to her closed universe, and symbolically a breach in a well-locked system.

Gender: drama
Director: Yukiko Sode, adapted from a novel by Mariko Yamauchi
Actors: Mugi Kadowaki, Kiko Mizuhara
Duration : 2:05
Country : Japan
Exit : March 30, 2022
Distributer : Art House
Summary: At almost 30, Hanako is still single, which displeases her wealthy and traditional family. When she thinks she has finally found the man of her life, she realizes that he already has an ambiguous relationship with Miki, a hostess who recently moved to Tokyo for her studies. Despite the world that separates them, the two women will have to get to know each other.