Dare mo shiranai (Nobody Knows)

The affair of the four abandoned children of Sugamo gripped the headlines in the late 80s. The case involved a mother of five children: two boys and three girls. The youngest boy died from an illness shortly after his birth in 1984. The mother had not registered any of the births, so she wrapped the body in plastic sheets and hid it in a closet after spraying some deodorizer. Eventually, the mother left the remainder of her children to live with a new lover.

The oldest boy was left in charge. He began having friends over, but they took advantage of the situation and beat the youngest girl to death for eating a bowl of ramen he had brought over (she was two-years-old). The landlord eventually realized that the apartment seemed to be occupied only by children and called the police, finding the children malnourished. The police also found the body of the infant in the closet and located the body of the two-year-old near Chichibu City. The mother, who turned herself in after seeing the story on the news, spent three years in prison with an addition four of probation after her release. She regained custody of her two surviving daughters.

Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s Dare mo shiranai, known by its English title as Nobody Knows, is based on the story of the children of Sugamo. Kore-Eda’s telling of the tale is mercifully far less ghastly than the actual events, but his film is still incredibly difficult to watch. As good as it is, I truly do not wish to repeat the experience and can only help but feel physically ill at the notion that people can and do treat children in this fashion around the world.

We are introduced to Keiko, played by Japanese model and pop star You, and her oldest son Akira (Yūya Yagira) as they are moving in to yet another apartment. They haul some suitcases up to it and open them, unveiling two younger children that are kept a secret from the landlord. A third, the oldest girl Kyoko (Ayu Kitaura), waits downstairs until the coast is clear. The children are given rules by Keiko like “Don’t go outside” and “Don’t make too much noise.” She appears weird and juvenile.

Akira is distrustful of his mother from the moment we meet him and for good reason. It isn’t long before she takes off, leaving the kids for a night with money. When she comes back, she is extraordinarily blissful – probably high – and acts as though leaving her young children in such a fashion is the most natural thing to do in the entire world. Later, Keiko lets Akira in on a little secret: she’s met someone new. And soon enough, Keiko is off again for a longer time. And then a much longer time.

Kore-Eda’s approach to the story is gripping in its minimalism. It is not told as a tale of endurance or of sensationalistic child abandonment. Instead, it is told as a tale of ennui. We are shown various shots of the children, stuck indoors for days on end, and of Akira racing around town trying to stretch out the inadequate fiscal resources his flake of a mother has left him. Kore-Eda leaves the emotion for us to feel, allowing us to furiously bark and blub at the screen as these poor children attempt to paddle through the mess and sludge of these petrifying circumstances.

The kids in the motion picture, especially Yagira, are not just playing adorable for the cameras. They reside in the roles, logically, and demonstrate how children muddle through, make decisions, and pass the time. It does not feel as though they are reading lines or finding spots for one instant. The performances are as untreated as I’ve ever seen. Yagira, by the way, won the Best Actor Award at Cannes.

Dare mo shiranai is a difficult movie to watch. It is distressing and decided, moving often at a snail’s pace to lie bare the monotony and dreary subsistence that these kids have been saddled with. More than merely being bored, though, these children must learn to get by with what has happened. And as the movie reaches its conclusion and one event happens that truly tests the human spirit, we all will learn more about coping than we ever thought possible.

Trailer: