Critical Movie Analysis: Nobody Knows

Critical Movie Analysis: Nobody Knows
Nobody Knows
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Critical Movie Analysis: Nobody Knows
Nobody Knows is a Japanese movie by Hirokazi Koreeda released in 2004. The film is set in Tokyo detailing the lives of four children; Akira, Kyoko, Shigeru and Yuki. The movie covers the incidences in their lives when their callous single mom abandons them.Akira is the eldest child and assumes responsibility after their drunk mother, who is usually absent, gets married again and leaves them for good. The movie highlights the challenges the children face and the relationships they build between them and their environment. It shows how Akira manages to fend for himself and the siblings. It describes the relationships he builds as he strives to find food for his brother and sisters. His pursuit to fit the responsibility of their absentee mother leads him to relationships with people like Saki and some possible fathers of his siblings as well as boys of his age. Akira's struggles and connections to the micro, mezzo and macro systems and the resulting implications are better explained from a social angle.
* Akira’s connectivity to his Micro, Mezzo and Macro Systems
Human lives are defined by the type of links they have with the outside world to handle daily matters showing how interdependence and healthy relationships can be pivotal in not only supporting but also controlling one's behavior (Hutchinson, 2015). The systems in Akira's life are not well defined and to some extent some are non-existent. Looking at the immediate system in Akira's life, the micro system, the boy has three siblings and a single mother who is reluctant to take care of them. The reluctance of Akira's mother and the absence of their fathers shift his responsibility to the caretaker of the other siblings when the mother is not around. He knows that their mother is the head as he listens to her when she dictates the rules as they settle in their new residence. Akira’s relationship with his mother is more mature and she burdens him with emotional and physical baggage. Left with a drunk single mother, Akira and his siblings have to redefine their relationship. This makes Akira to transition his relationship to that of a parent too. The dysfunctional relations to his parents revert to a closer and stronger connection to his siblings. The stronger connection between Akira and his sibling is captured best when a man in a parlor describes the kids as having each other despite having no parents.
The distorted micro system helps Akira define who he is and what he has become. It makes him feel like he is solely responsible for his siblings and that he has to take care of them. His assumed responsibility as a parent is seen when he even brings them gifts and presents that he pretends are from their mother. The constraints within themicro system have made him necessarily mature for his age where we see him even keeping secrets from his siblings and noting the possibility of their mother not coming back again. In a scene where he looks over a schoolyard, it is easy to figure out what is going on in his mind at that moment seeing kids his age at school. This, in my opinion, can make a kid have the notion of an unfair world where nothing is entitled. Apart from the unfair conditions as a result of not attending school as his peers, staying at home for all those months while his mother was away without anyone caring about their welfare would also bring the notion of an uncaring world of adults. Akira's relationship to his family, especially his mother, saw him transition from being just a brother to being the parent figure after his mother left making it his turning point according to Elizabeth Hutchinson's (2015) concepts on life course of a person.
* Mezzo System
According to Eamon Mary (2001) the mezzo systems refer to the relations between two or more microsystems (family, peer group and the child's school) that contain the same individual. In the case of Akira, the interrelationship between his family and his friends, however few, form his mezzo system. The abandonment of his mother forces him to interact with new friends and other micro systems to survive. Akira did not have many peers as a result of his responsibility for his siblings since they always came in between his social life. This inter-linkage comes out best when he befriends boys his age and his interactions with him lead to him neglecting his siblings. This shows that his family not only stands in the way of his other relations but also controls and dictates which relations are necessary and which are not. Low-income earners usually have fewer social contacts despite the desperate need for them which reduces their access to social support (Eamon, 2015, pp260). This strained relationship comes in Akira's life when the only person who offers to help him is a high school girl, Saki, for support even when his brother dies.
Akira's connectivity to the outside world in his mezzo system is strained mainly because of his responsibility to his family. He cannot maintain a healthy relationship outside his family mainly because of his role as a surrogate parent. He does not have many friends and the few he has do not last long. Despite these challenges, he still manages to have few glimpses of the social life as he even, at one point, tries to play baseball with friends. The relationship he has with the video game boys his age is out of his necessity for friendship and peer socialization which was strained by his role as to his brother and sisters and his refusal to shop-lift- an aspect the paper highlights in his macro system. However, the relationship with Saki was a little longer lasting and more necessary for survival and lasts longer even after the movie ends. Akira's mezzo system solely depends on whether the relationship he has is good for his immediate family or not. Another mezzo linkage in Akira's life is with the possible fathers of Yuki to whom he goes to beg for support. This relationship, like Saki's, is purely out of necessity and the sense of responsibility that he has.
The relationships a child has with their peers and other members of the community influences their perception of who they are and the functionality of the systems around them. Akira has to choose his siblings over his peers showing the overlap of the micro system onto the mezzo system in his life. He does not have a school life and the scene overlooking a school with kids his age gets him asking questions as to why he is not in school. Akira has the sense that he has to take care of his siblings even if that means he misses out on school and friends. Saki's presence though can have a positive take on the world for him. This is because despite his situation, she goes out of her way to help him.
* Macro System
Macro systems have the cultural aspects that denote activities taking place in the immediate system levels in one's life comprising of lifestyles, customs, shared knowledge and cultural beliefs (Eamon, 2001). The study of the macro system focuses on exploring the notions of poverty, community violence and cohesiveness aimed towards the welfare of the individuals. For a person to have a functional macro system, they have to be assimilated in the community for the residents to have a strong sense of loyalty, place and shared history (Cattell 2001). Akira's macro system is rarely existent and therefore has very little influence over who he is. The movie starts as they move into a new apartment meaning that they were new in the particular community. His life shows a non-existent macro-environment that is not involved in his family's welfare. At one time, he is offered by one of his friends to contact the authorities but refuses noting that the last time he did it got messy. The community around them is not involved in their lives as even the landlady does not know about Shigeru and Yuki. This alienation makes the macro system around Akira to have minimal influence on who he is.
The influence of the macro system in Akira’s life is negligible. There is no community involvement in his life as the micro and mezzo systems constitute most of his life. Their poverty and the need to stay secret is the main reason for the minimal involvement of any welfare groups or community driven initiatives in his life. The housin...