Shizukana seikatsu (1995)

Shizukana seikatsu: Directed by Jûzô Itami. With Masayuki Imai, Nobuko Miyamoto, Hinako Saeki, Mihoko Shibata. Melodrama about the life of a mentally handicapped young man and his devoted sister after their famous novelist father and housewife mother go to Australia on a business trip.

“Japanese filmmakers have a gift for translating the tenets of humanist thought onto celluloid. Akira Kurosawa created several such masterpieces, from Ikiru to the triumphant Red Beard; Shunji Iwai contributed the wacky but thought-provoking Swallowtail; Juzo Itami gave us Daibyonin (The Last Dance) and this little treasure.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIiyo is regarded as one of societyu0026#39;s unfortunates, a u0026quot;retardu0026quot; as one schoolgirl exclaims, but he has a lovely, even enviable world view, one which, admittedly, the people closest to him are slow to pick up on. In fact, the u0026quot;normalu0026quot; folks in this film seem almost neurotic, as they manufacture complex and troublesome meanings and motives to explain Iiyou0026#39;s behavior.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eLong ago, a college professor advised me and 499 classmates to try to experience the world through the eyes of a severely handicapped person. He promised that it would be a most rewarding exercise. Juzo Itami captured this sentiment on film in a beautiful and thoughtful way.”