Clerks

Year of Release:  1994
Director:  Kevin Smith
Screenplay:  Kevin Smith
Starring:  Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Lisa Spooner, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier
Running Time:  92 minutes
Genre:  Comedy, slice-of-life

The film follows a day in the life Dante Hicks (O'Halloran), a 22 year old employee of the Quick Stop convenience store in Leonardo, New Jersey, who is forced to go into work on what is supposed to be his day off.  He finds himself having to deal with his girlfriend Veronica's (Ghigliotti) sexual confessions, the fact that the love of his life is getting married, a hockey game, a funeral and an endless stream of weird, stupid and abusive customers.  Also stuck in Dante's purgatory are his best friend (and possibly worst enemy) Randall Graves (Anderson) and drug dealers Jay (Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith).

This super low-budget film marks the debut of writer/director/actor Kevin Smith and is the first of his connected series of "View Askewniverse" films (named after Smith's View Askew production company), which are linked by recurring characters and story elements, most notably the characters of Jay and Silent Bob who would go on to appear in many other films.
The film was shot in grainy black and white in the convenience store where Smith was working at the times, at night and on the weekends.  At the beginning of the film, Dante discovers that the metal shutters of the store are gummed shut, this was partly to hide the fact that although the film is set during the day, it was mostly shot at night.  With it's, at the time, completely unknown cast, grainy look and low-budget feel it has an element of authenticity and does at times resemble a documentary, filmed on a store security camera.  Crucially, it's also very funny.  Smith's sharp, vulgar and endlessly quotable dialogue is perceptive and hilarious, although definitely not for the easily offended.  With the directionless characters, fascinated by pop-culture, working crappy jobs, dreaming of something better but unsure of how to get it, this is one of the great films about young adulthood.

Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) in Clerks       

Ocean Waves

Year of Release: 1993
Director:  Tomomi Mochizuki
Screenplay:  Kaori Nakamura, based on the novel I Can Hear the Sea by Saeko Himuro
Starring:  Nobuo Tobita, Toshihiko Seki, Yoko Sakamoto
Running Time:  72 minutes
Genre:  Anime, drama, slice-of-life, romance

This film was produced by the legendary animation company Studio Ghibli and premiered on Japanese television on May 5 1993.

It opens with a young man, Taku Morisaki (voiced by Tobita) waiting at a train station in Tokyo, where he glimpses a familiar woman.  This takes him back two years to when he was a high school student in the small town of Kochi, and a love triangle that springs up between him, his best friend, Yutaka Matsuno (voiced by Seki) and a transfer student from Tokyo, Rikako Muto (voiced by Sakamoto).  Yutaka is immediately infatuated with the beautiful Rikako, while Taku, despite being very attracted to her, is put off by her difficult personality.  However, Taku grows increasingly close to Rikako during a class trip to Hawaii, and an impromptu trip to Tokyo.  However, as we all know very well, these things are rarely simple.

This was originally intended as a way for Studio Ghibli to allow their younger staff members to make a quick, low budget film, even though it ran over schedule and over budget.  It's a lesser Ghibli work, and the animation is not as impressive as usual, however it is still a good movie, with some beautiful visuals.   This is a straightforward contemporary romantic drama with no fantasy elements whatsoever, in fact it is interesting that it was done as an animation and not live action.  However the animation does work well for the material.  It's a quiet, graceful film that should appeal to fans of more "realistic" slice-of-life anime. 

Taku and Rikako in Ocean Waves        

Trees Lounge

Year of Release:  1996
Director:  Steve Buscemi
Screenplay:  Steve Buscemi
Starring:  Steve Buscemi, Chloe Sevigny, Mark Boone Junior, Anthony LaPaglia, Elizabeth Bracco, Seymour Cassel, Carol Kane, Samuel L. Jackson
Running Time:  95 minutes
Genre:  Drama, slice-of-life

In a tough, working-class neighbourhood of New York City, alcoholic Tommy Basilio (Buscemi) is a fixture at the local bar, Trees Lounge.  His girlfriend of eight years has left him for his boss and former best friend, Rob (LaPaglia).  Rob subsequently fired Tommy from his job as a mechanic for stealing money form the till.  In between drinking at the Trees Lounge, Tommy spends his time half-heartedly looking for work, eventually being given an ice-cream truck, following the death of the owner.  He also manages to form a connection with Debbie (Sevigny), the seventeen-year-old niece of a former girlfriend.

This is a downbeat, slice-of-life drama, very much in the John Cassavetes school of gritty realism, and features Cassavetes regular Seymour Cassel.  By and large the film sticks with Tommy, but it also deals with the lives of other Trees Lounge regulars, all of whom seem to lead pretty miserable lives.  Some crucial elements in the film are left ambiguous, not depicted on screen we are left to decide for ourselves what really happened from the often differing versions of events that the characters give us.  Not much happens in the film and, in keeping with the lives these characters lead, there are no real conclusions, despite glimmerings of hope it looks as if they will keep doing the same things over and over again.  This is a strong debut from Buscemi as a writer-director making largely unlikeable characters sympathetic and giving the film a strain of dark comedy.  The film has a strong cast full of recognisable faces from nineties independent movies.  The film's largely plotless nature and slow pace may put off some viewers but it is worth sticking with because it is a well-performed and well-written drama.  Buscemi scripted and directed one other film Animal Factory (2003) and has directed a number of TV episodes, but Trees Lounge really makes me which that he had done more as a writer/director because, on the evidence of this, he could have become a notable filmmaker as well as an actor.     

Steve Buscemi in Trees Lounge

"The Bricks That Built the Houses" by Kate Tempest

Year of Publication:  2016
Length:  399 pages
Genre:  slice-of-life

The novel follows the lives of a group of 20-somethings in London:  Becky is an aspiring dancer, working as a waitress and part-time masseuse. Harry sells drugs to rich people in clubs and at parties, while dreaming of setting up a bar/restaurant/performing arts venue/community center.  Harry is in love with Becky, but Becky is dating Pete, Harry's jealous, bitter, unemployed younger brother. They struggle with dead-end jobs, complex friendships and relationships, violent maniacs, politics and angry drug-dealers, all the time trying to pursue their dreams and escape the emptiness of their lives in south-east London.

Kate Tempest is an acclaimed poet, rapper and playwright, this is her first novel.  The prose is deft with some beautiful passages, and a strong ear for dialogue.  The novel moves between past and present, detailing the early lives and backgrounds of the characters.  The book treats it's characters  with real compassion, even when they make bad choices.  It also portrays a powerful portrait of inner-city British life.  This is a passionate, engaged, relevant novel, written with real heart.  Some of the storylines conclude a little too neatly at the end, but this is a minor criticism.  It's a great book.

        

Only Yesterday

Year of Release:  1991
Director:  Isao Takahata
Screenplay:  Isao Takahata, based on the manga Omoide Poro Poro by Hotaru Okamoto and Yuko Tone 
Starring: Miki Imai. Toshiro Yanagiba, Yoko Honna
Running Time:  118 minutes
Genre:  drama, animation, slice of life

This lyrical, animated drama is one of the lesser known classics in the catalogue of Japan's legendary Studio Ghibli.  It tells the story of Taeko, a 27 year old, unmarried, office worker living in Tokyo.  Taking a ten day holiday from work she travels to a remote farm owned by the elder brother of her brother-in-law, to help with the safflower harvest.  Along the way she drifts back to memories of her ten year old self in 1966.  Increasingly nostalgic and wistful, Taeko's memories and dreams make her realise what she really wants from life.

This is a genuinely powerful film, which, in it's quiet way, is a masterpiece.  It deals with themes of memory, city versus country, and the relationship between adults and the children they once were.  The "present day" (or 1980s) sequences have a particularly realistic look to them, unusually for Japanese animation, the dialogue for these scenes was recorded before the animation was produced.  For the 1966 sequences, a more typical anime style is used for the characters, with the backgrounds done in  a sketchy watercolour style, which shows how memory can be.  If you look back to your own childhood memories, some elements may stand out vividly, but a lot of them are fainter and more unreal.  It also takes us into Taeko's dreams and fantasies, which are vividly depicted.

The film takes it's time and beautifully evokes the rhythms of rural life, as well as the triumphs and heartbreaks of childhood.  The film suggests that we are at our purest, most honest selves as children, and that as adults, we have to reconnect with the children that we once were.  Sometimes sweet, sometimes heartbreaking, often funny, this is a gentle dream of a film.

      The past meets the present in Only Yesterday

Our Little Sister

Year of Release:  2015
Director:  Hirokazu Koreeda
Screenplay:  Hirokazu Koreeda, based on the manga Unimachi Diary by Akimi Yoshida
Starring:  Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho, Suzu Hirose
Running Time:  126 minutes
Genre:  Drama, slice-of-life

This Japanese film is a gentle, quiet take on family life.  The three adult Koda sisters live in a  large house in Kamakura.  The eldest, Sachi (Ayase) is a nurse, and the de facto matriarch of the clan, Yoshino (Nagasawa) is a bank teller, and has a tendency to get drunk and involved with useless men, Chika (Kaho) is the youngest and works in a sporting goods store.  Their house was left to them by their grandmother.  When the women were children, their father left the family for another woman, and they have not seen him for fifteen years.  Their mother left them shortly afterwards, leaving Sachi to look after her younger sisters, and Sachi still resents her for this.  Having been notified of their father's death, the sisters attend his funeral, where they learn they have a hitherto unknown half-sister, fourteen year old Suzu (Hirose).  Charmed by Suzu's liveliness and responsibility, the three sisters invite her to come and live with them, which Suzu eagerly agrees to.

This is the kind of quiet, wistful film that Japanese cinema does so well.  Very little actually happens in the film.  Sachi strikes up a tentative relationship with a married man, Yoshino gets a promotion at work, and tries to help the kindly owner of a local cafe, Suzu makes friends at school and proves to have a real talent for soccer.  All four deal with complex family ties.  Even the more soap opera elements in the various storylines are very low-key. The characters also eat, a lot, in fact barely five minutes of screentime pass without at least one person eating or drinking, or food being seen or referenced.  Food is depicted as a point of connection.  The sisters eat together most of the time, friendships are forged or solidified with gifts of food, and families are brought together by recipes passed down through generations.                

This is a film full of small delights, which is emotional but largely unsentimental.  There are darker elements that are brought up but, mostly, left in the background.  The film features some fine performances, and is beautifully shot.  The characters are engaging, but often flawed.   However they are likeable, and by and large try to do the right thing.  People are flawed here, but change and forgiveness are always possible.  This is a wistful, gently joyful tale.

Kaho, Haruka Ayase, Suzu Hirose and Masami Nagasawa in Our Little Sister