Talking About The Asadas (2020)

+ I finally got around to rewatching this movie last night after watching + it on a plane one time. It really stuck with me because of a scene near + the end that made me cry. I usually don't really talk about movies all + that much but I felt the need to discuss this one. +

+ On rewatch, the film did not hold up as well as I remembered. I still + enjoyed it, but I found the plot and pacing to be somewhat odd. It felt + like two disjoint movies, one about a struggling photographer trying to + follow his dreams and one about trying to find hope in the aftermath of + the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. I think both stories worked well on their + own, but I think that they failed to transition effectively between the + two. +

+ The first half of the movie shows Masashi taking up photography after + seeing his father gifts him the old family camera. He is very interested + in photography as a child before becoming directionless after graduating + from his university with a prestigious award for a family photo he took. + Years later, he becomes inspired once again and begins taking many + family photos, each with funny themes where the family pretends to be in + various different scenarios such as pretending they were all on a car + racing team or that they were a family of gangsters. He publishes a book + of this photography and initially has little success before winning an + award for it and achieving a lot of success. I found this section to be + very poorly paced. He pretty quickly goes from his book being an abject + failure to a huge success. It feels like it was missing something, but + the family photos were cute and fun and the struggles of wanting to do + something, but never doing anything to satisfy that urge to create is + immensely relatable to me. +

+ The second half of the movie was significantly more emotionally + stimulating and I think that it deals with the devestation of such a + natural disaster very well. In particular, I appreciated how it dealt + with a young child who had lost her father in the earthquake. After his + death she was very distraught because she could not find any photos of + her father in the collection of photos that protagonist Masashi Asada + and other volunteers had helped salvage. At the same time, Masashi's + father was having a medical emergency and his family thought he may pass + away. Similarly, there were few photos of him before Masashi took up + photography as his father was always the one behind the camera. + Realizing this, Masashi quickly comes back to Tōhoku to take a family + photo for that child. Wearing the father's old watch to take a photo, he + made the family realize that their father was actually in every single + one of those photos, just behind the camera instead of in front. +

+ The movie ends with a fake-out about the father's death. It shows the + family surrounding him as he lays down as though dead. His wife falls + forward to sob, and then you hear a camera shutter and the family all + start laughing. This was just another of Masashi's fun themed family + photos. The scene gave me a good chuckle. +

+ Overall, I found the movie to be very cute and I found that it did a + great job of dealing with the tragedy of natural disaster. I really wish + that it did a better job of pacing the first half and tying the themes + of the first half to the second half. It felt disjointed and that is + disappointing to me because I think it could have been a really + fantastic movie if those issues were worked through with a little more + script editing. +