License to Live

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 1999 film follows Yutaka, who spent ten years in a coma after an accident at fourteen. When he wakes his family has dispersed: father, mother and sister all live in different places. Yutaka decides to reopen the farm the family once ran. Kurosawa is better known for horror and this film stands well away from it. Even so a similar feeling runs underneath: the characters move through their own lives like strangers and nothing returns to what it was. The more Yutaka tries to close the ten-year gap, the clearer it becomes that his family moved on inside it. Koji Yakusho plays the vet who helps him. The film is calm and its humour dry; the sadness is never stated and seeps through between scenes. Who it's for: those curious about Kiyoshi Kurosawa outside horror and about quiet family drama. Who it's not for: viewers waiting for incident; there is almost no dramatic development across the film.