Mazâ

Do you remember Rousseaou's phrase that the Child is good by nature but it is society that corrupts it? Well here the mother applies and not all of society. A Japanese drama. It is about a woman who drags her son to live outside the social norms, spoiling him, while living in a street situation and does everything, except work to survive. A mother who believes that because they are her children she can do with them and raise them outside of social norms. Heartbreaking. Suffocating. Raw Zero romanticized. At times it becomes untenable, you want to enter the screen and save the creatures. You suffer most of the movie along with the characters. The everyday life of a well-led life. The performances to what is expected. It shows emotional blackmail and the antithesis of what maternal love is. The end, although it is consistent, leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Not an easy watch by any measure, but this Japanese drama inspired by true stories is uncompromising and raw in so many levels. It explores toxic relationship between a single mother and her young son. At the core, it questions the rights and responsibilities of motherhood and how it can effect an innocent life. The story seems so extreme at times and it's hard to believe that it's based on real events. Even though the whole journey is very depressing but it reaches a somewhat satisfying conclusion.

A movie about codependency, neglect, toxic cicles and learned hopelessness. It does a very good job at portraying the ugly side of society, it's so heartbreaking that it makes you want to look away (the same way many characters do during the film). But it's quite slow paced, and because it does show the endless cicles of bad decisions and abuse in a realistic way, by the end of it it felt like I was watching the same scene on a loop.

The director is sensitive enough to show a family of outcasts (if we can call that human gathering a family), a situation that, although it exists in any society, no country likes to show them in the cinema. Very good performance in general, notably the boy Shuhei. Today's Japanese cinema has succeeded the Italian's in the art of unraveling the complicated life of those forgotten by society.

A very troubled mother travels around Japan with her son and later her new daughter gambling, drinking, sleeping with bad men and avoiding debt collectors. All the time her son seeks stability and education his mother derails his hopes at every turn. A depressing look at co dependency and the spiral of descent which will eventually lead to an unimaginable crime.