Dare Mo Shiranai (2004)

Dare Mo Shiranai is a Japanese film whose title translates into English as Nobody Knows.  Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, this movie is based loosely on real events that occurred in 1988 and which were heavily covered by the Japanese media.  In fact, upon further investigation the events that happened in reality were far more grisly than they were depicted in the movie.  In the film, a young mother of four children moves into a new apartment.  Forbidding her three youngest children to leave the apartment for fear that they will be discovered by the landlord, only the oldest child named Akira (depicted above, played by Yuya Yagira) is allowed to leave the apartment in order to support his siblings.  As time passes the circumstances worsen.  Beautiful cinematography and poetic sequences of scenes leave the viewer simultaneously charmed by the children and saddened by their plight.  The slow pacing highlights the natural quality of the children’s interactions, and Yuya Yagira’s performance especially was outstanding (he actually won Best Actor at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival).  This movie was incredibly moving and I highly recommend it. 

My rating: 10/10