We Are Little Zombies
Directed by: Makoto Nagahisa
Written by: Makoto Nagahisa
Starring: Keita Ninomiya, Mondo Okumura, Satoshi Mizuno, Sena Nakajima
Drama/Music - 120 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 8 Jul 2020
Written by: Makoto Nagahisa
Starring: Keita Ninomiya, Mondo Okumura, Satoshi Mizuno, Sena Nakajima
Drama/Music - 120 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 8 Jul 2020
Director Makoto Nagahisa wants the audience to feel they are watching a video game as much as they are a feature film with his debut, We Are Little Zombies. While innovative and even out of the world at times, the package is not necessarily revolutionary in the greater context of experimental filmmaking. Acknowledging the buzz around this film going into it, I was ready to follow where it led and submit to any antics perhaps covering a deeper, hidden message. Nagahisa offers a distinct, retro vibe leaning heavily on 8-bit sound pings you remember from ‘80s video games. These are classic sounds familiar to most, but Nagahisa ups the ante with added layers, volume, and distortion making for a heavier tone.
The dynamic opening does its job warning us how fast and disjointed the momentum will shift, as if we’re weaving in and out of lanes on the interstate, coming to a dead stop in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and then back to top speed. The playful camera goes inside a chip bag to show us what fingers look like poking around in there and inside a glass of orange juice as a gigantic mouth sucks on a straw. He breaks the film into levels and has overhead shots with his characters marching in a line looking like a troop of questers in a role playing game.
The dynamic opening does its job warning us how fast and disjointed the momentum will shift, as if we’re weaving in and out of lanes on the interstate, coming to a dead stop in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and then back to top speed. The playful camera goes inside a chip bag to show us what fingers look like poking around in there and inside a glass of orange juice as a gigantic mouth sucks on a straw. He breaks the film into levels and has overhead shots with his characters marching in a line looking like a troop of questers in a role playing game.
The film’s foundation are a quartet of very recently orphaned 13 year-olds. Our way into the group is through little Hikari (Keita Ninomiya, Like Father, Like Son). We observe him learn of his parents’s death on a tour bus, march through pro forma funeral rituals he is overtly detached from, and never shed a tear. There are no hints they ever abused him, but through choppy flashbacks there are some trends of possible emotional neglect. This neglect was a two-way street though; Hikari spent all his time buried in a hand-held video game ignoring his parents as much as they were avoiding him. The film offers a sort of round robin as we learn how each of the orphans lost their parents and why none of them felt marked sadness at their passing.
It appears Nagahisa instructed the children to go stiff and lifeless in their performances, at least in the first half. Not knowing where to go, but aware enough to know none of them wants to join their new guardians, the kids amble from one apartment to another until they run out of backstory and wind up essentially homeless and broke in a construction site. Their emotional abyss hits the fast forward button when they cobble together some rudimentary instruments and fall backwards into a viral video, the eponymous “We Are Little Zombies!” The song has a trippy and surreal pop-punk vibe and lands them a greedy manager and exploitative contracts.
The little zombies couldn’t care less about being exploited or gaining teen heartthrob status. They remain stoic and offer a particular nihilist persona about life, society and their place in it. Hence, they are the zombies in their song. They fear going through life attached to a new family, for that is another way to become a zombie. Their antidote is to find others as alienated as they are, and make do that way. Most of the kids’ dialogue are philosophical platitudes far too advanced for them which will remind the audience of Garden State’s head-in-the-clouds feeling, but there are cinephile segments who believe Nagahisa has something special to offer with these orphans on a journey toward emotional release. Winning awards at both the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals is a sign of possible arthouse classic status. I was less mind blown than those festival voters, but don’t be surprised if you keep seeing articles and tweets referencing this raw, quirky Japanese film. This type of buzz does not tend to fade quickly.
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