“It is impossible not to be touched and beguiled by it.” - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
‘Accentuate the positive’ hardly begins to sum up the atmosphere in Koreeda Hirokazu’s enchanting new film Our Little Sister (Imimachi Diary), which channels the Japanese master Ozu Yasujiro at the same time as it lovingly recreates the world of Hollywood 1940s family melodramas like Meet Me in St Louis and Little Women. Calling on the audience to travel with it into the warm embrace of its small-town setting, the film richly repays our suspension of cynicism, thanks not a little to Koreeda’s masterly tweaking of the emotional level and the discreet beauty of the cinematography by Takimoto Mikiya (who also shot Like Father, Like Son). Indeed only when Takimoto allows himself a flourish – as in a delirious bicycle ride through a tunnel of cherry blossom or an elegant, Ozu-style deep-focus framing of three sisters chatting in the evening, one on the veranda, one in the doorway, one inside the house – does it become clear how carefully controlled the film’s visuals otherwise are.
Nick Roddick
Sight & Sound
