| After returning to my apartment
one evening after finishing up another long day
of babysitting the great gaggle of giggling girls
known as my students in Japan, I semi-excitedly
sat down in front of my movie-viewing apparatus
with another Toho movie that I knew nothing about.
Gege, or Milk White, as
it is known by its international English title,
was the film, which I later learned was directed
by the Itsumichi Isomura who also directed the
superior Give It All. I was anticipating another
Japanese romantic tearjerker, most likely climaxing
with the tragiCliche of the cute female passing
away, and our already over-emotional male lead
spouting a shower of face-clenching tears.
I
started the DVD a-spinning away. The plot leisurely
made its way in, and—yep, there's the couple,
separated by thousands of miles because of her
research. He's an elementary school teacher and
loves those kids—what a tender guy, worthy
of a thousand women's sighs. Blah, blah, mediocrity.
Then, BAM. Something happened in the story, and
for the first time in my life I was determined
to buy a film that I didn't really enjoy, that
was actually pretty boring, that had an unlikable
lead male and the narrative speed of a slower-than-average
after-school special.
And
it was all for one reason: to watch it with my
brother.
To
understand why this movie was so significant
to me, one has to understand a little bit about
my family. Years ago, during that tumultuous
period of torturous confusion known as high school,
my brother, in the midst of attempting to complete
his driver's education course, suddenly and unexplainably
began to lose his sight. His vision was obscured
by hundreds of tiny floaters, pieces of physical
matter that seemingly levitated through the vitreous
humor of his eyes and blurred the world outside.
Now, floaters are fairly common—many people
have them, and they have numerous causes—but
my brother had them in such a volume that he
was declared legally blind, and after an anxiety-rich
field of inconclusive tests and examinations,
it was declared that he had the extremely rare
(in America) auto-immune disease called Behçet's
syndrome. This was especially remarkable in one
so young as my brother was—as we learned,
Behçet's usually strikes those who are
older. The diagnosis could come only after testing
for every other possible disease that might be
causing the distinct symptoms; there was no test
that could directly detect the Behçet's
aberration. It wasn't like a virus, or malignant
bacteria that could be destroyed through antibiotics—it
was the body itself turning its formidable self-defenses
against its own flesh and blood. Though there
was much worry, confusion, and prayer from us
(his family), my brother was subjected to a liberal
dose of daily immune-system suppressants that
rendered him (theoretically) more susceptible
to other forms of disease, but stopped his body
from self-destructing. Now he can see just fine,
with about 20/20 vision, and doesn't even need
glasses; as for his general health, he probably
gets sick less often than I do. After a long
period of heart-yanking unknowns, by God's grace
he can live like a normal man—with lots
of pills.
My brother's problem made for
a very dramatic time in our lives. The disease
itself, on the other hand, naturally enough due
to its obscurity, never gains much national attention
in the USA, and I never figured I would see a
movie with Behçet's as a prominent plot element.
Then again, as we were learning about the disease,
one doctor made mention of how Behçet's
was more common among the Japanese…
In the story of Milk White,
Takayuki Tanaka (played by Takao Osawa, popular
from that same year's Crying
Out Love, in the Center of the World,
and Ryuhei Kitamura's horror fantasy Sky High from
2003) is the school teacher, popular among his
students, and engaged to the incredibly kind
Yoko (Yuriko Ishida, the voice of San in 1997's Princess
Mononoke, and
the female lead from 2002's Yomigaeri:
Resurrection),
who is off in Mongolia for her studies. Everything
in the universe seems set to hand Takayuki a
perfectly happy life, but a demented dream followed
by a bizarre white-sky-like flash before his
eyes and something that looks like a seizure
casts our protagonist's future in doubt. Inspecting
himself in the mirror soon afterwards, he discovers
a strange half-moon-shaped block of white in
his iris. A quick visit to a doctor friend, and
Takayuki is diagnosed with Behçet's, based
on some preliminary examinations and superficial
symptoms. Pretty soon, Takayuki is forced to
quit his job and move back home with his elderly
mother in Nagasaki as he hides the nature of
his tragedy from all those close to him, and
faces what appears to be a terrifying inevitability
of complete blindness brought on by his mysterious
disease.
The plot, as mentioned before,
is quite slow-moving. There isn't a lot of excitement
throughout as Takayuki struggles with the despair
of his disease and what it means for his life,
and how it will affect his relationships with
those close to him. What would have been an excellent
opportunity to educate movie viewers about the
nature of this unique disease, however, is mostly
squandered for what is meant to be dramatic effect.
Very little information about the malady is provided;
I don't believe the film even touches on the
fact that Behçet's is an auto-immune disorder.
The symptoms of the disease are characterized
strangely as well, appearing as a series of painful-looking
attacks wherein the victim briefly loses all
sight to a wave of blooming light, which somehow
leads to a vague deterioration in his eyes, his
sight becoming a blurry haze, like the world
is enveloped in fog. According to my brother,
there is a symptom of Behçet's in which
flashing lights, like lightning, occur, but this
is an indication of the retina tearing and is
not accompanied by the dramatic pain depicted
here. Descriptions of what precisely is going
on in Takayuki's eyes are kept to a bare minimum,
and other symptoms such as painful mouth and
genital sores are barely touched upon. Nevertheless,
the light sensitivity and eye pain of uveitis
is depicted, and it's hard to fault the filmmakers
too much for their representation of the symptoms,
especially considering the wide variety of ways
in which Behçet's can manifest itself.
Milk White, however, simplifies things considerably,
playing the disease essentially as a hopeless
sentence to eventual blindness—which, as
I understand it, is a rather rare outcome of
the rare disease, what with current medicines
available.
Not that a bit of creative license
is necessarily a bad thing. Movies are notorious
for exaggerating the facts, usually in service
of pumping up the plot for audience approval.
In a story like this, though, the characters
and our sympathy for them must carry the movie,
and unfortunately our heroes aren't fleshed out
enough to have the strength to carry much.
Takayuki,
being the center of the story, is surprisingly
unlikable in the face of adversity. Osawa is
a capable actor, if somewhat bland, but here
the story dictates his character as something
of an uncommunicative doormat. After finding
out about his disease, Takayuki essentially gives
up everything without even searching out treatments
or going to experts in the field. The most he
does is visit another man blinded by Behçet's (played by Akira Emoto, who
I have eternally typecast in my mind as a pervert
due to his roles in Drugstore Girl and 2001's
Waterboys). Takayuki also refuses to tell his
mother or even his fiancé about his disease,
trying to break off his future marriage and hide
from all his problems. Yuriko Oshida's Yoko is
much more likable as his spurned girlfriend,
but her character is even shallower than Takayuki's,
playing more as a perfect ideal as a faithful
partner and nigh unflappable support to the protagonist's
emotional tidal waves. Though she delivers a
warm, earnest performance, it is hard to understand
why she stands by this unfortunate man.
These
themes of acceptance (rather than fighting the
disease) are likely linked to the Zen Buddhist
themes that introduce themselves roughly halfway
into the feature when Takayuki visits a local
aged Buddhist priest, who is positioned as the
iconic guru and bestower of wisdom. The Japanese
title of the film, Gege, is explained as the
name given to the conclusion of a specific period
wherein Buddhist monks seclude themselves during
spring in order not to trample newly grown life
and to engage in deep contemplation. Gege, then,
means "summer's release," or when the monks'
term of meditation is concluded and they return
to the normal strictures of their religious lives.
Thus we are to understand that Takayuki is going
through a similar period in his life while he
learns to accept his new circumstances. Nevertheless,
to this viewer, he comes across as a self-centered
punk, which is likely the point until he matures
into a more sublime state of acceptance.
The music
doesn't make the movie any more memorable; most
of the score is composed of melancholy and infrequent
piano and violin pieces that might prove pleasant
background music on a rainy day, but aren't very
interesting beyond the context of the film.
I
don't really dislike Milk White. I'm thankful
for the chance to watch the film with my brother,
who seemed to appreciate it even for all its
faults. It provided me with an opportunity to
connect with him on a level we don't often touch
upon. However, from the uninteresting characters
to the dumb truncated diagnoses to the sometimes
arthritic pacing, Milk White is pure vanilla—acceptable,
unremarkable, and probably better mixed with
more full-bodied ingredients. |
(2.5/5)