Hebi Ichigo (Wild Berries) (Japan Version - English Subtitles) DVD Region 2

Wild Berries opens with what seems to be a typical, middle-class family, a bit harried but mostly happy, with daughter Kimiko (Ezawa Moeko) bringing home her fiance to meet the parents. This myth of normalcy gets abruptly shattered though when the family members reveal their selfish selves. The mother, after years of looking after the senile grandfather, looks the other way while he seizures and dies. The father (the always wonderful Terajima Susumu), it turns out, has been out of a job for a while, but has kept it a secret from the family. In the meantime, he's racked up quite a bit of debt, and the debtors show up during the grandfather's funeral. Also making an appearance for the funeral is black sheep son Shuji (Miyasako Hiroyuki), who immediately gets on the folks' good side by presenting an envelope full of cash (attained through dubious means). Kimiko is suddenly faced with a family of strangers who have finally shown their true faces. And she - the one who has always done the right thing - has become the outsider, the bad guy for never erring.

One of the most interesting things about the film is how one's perception of Shuji and Kimiko evolve in the course of the film. Kimiko is in all respects the victim - the honest and reasonable representative who has to suffer for the family's mistakes, the one who wants to do what's right. Shuji, meanwhile, steals money at funerals and is clearly trying to con his parents while they're down on luck. And yet as the film progresses, the viewer's interest and the parents' affections increasingly go to Shuji exactly because of his loud personality and flagrant flaws. For the same reason the mother feels suffocated by Kimiko's "goodness", the viewer is increasingly turned off by her frigidness, while at the same time sympathizing with the plight her personality has brought upon herself. Perfect is boring, and the family comes alive after the derailing, allowed to breathe and rage rather than just politely play a role. Nothing of great importance or drama happens in Wild Berries, and yet it manages to make a very telling statement about the modern family and contemporary life.