For showtimes for "Cicada" at Heartland, click here.
For complete Heartland Film Festival showtimes, click here.
Change may be life's only constant, but that doesn't make it any easier. The uncertainty of an unknown future can be frightening, but perhaps even more difficult can be the loss of the familiar past. That type of change, the loss of "what was," is marked by a very real feeling of grief mingled with regret. It's not the sharp, stabbing pain of anxiety; it's a dull ache that draws out like a slow journey down a long and lazy river.
"Cicada," directed by Dean Yamada, is the story of one man's journey down that river toward acceptance. Jumpei Taneda (Yugo Saso) is a school teacher who, in preparing to ask his longtime girlfriend to marry him, discovers that he is infertile. It is quite a blow to the shy and reserved Jumpei, who didn't realize how much he wanted to have children until he finds out he can't. Jumpei can't bring himself to tell his girlfriend, Yukari (Hitomi Takimoto), about his problem and soon he begins having mysterious clairvoyant flashes that lead him to cicada shells.
Meanwhile, Jumpei's nephew Ryota (Houten Saito) is being bullied by classmates at school. His unemployed father, Masaki (Jumpei Yasui), is a feckless and thoroughly immature sort who borrows money from Jumpei to enable his gambling debt and is unable to relate to his son the way a father should. Ryota's mother, the fiery Nanaka (Hiroko Wada), decides to throw a big birthday party for him and invite his classmates in an effort to change their attitudes toward him.
Adrift emotionally, Jumpei gets caught up in helping his family plan the party while compounding his problems with his girlfriend by proposing to her without telling her the truth about his fertility issues. It all comes to a head when the only people who show up for Ryota's birthday party are the crazy adults around him, and their dirty laundry gets aired with hilarious results.
"Cicada" is remarkably funny and warm for a film that is about the journey toward acceptance and making peace with life even when it takes you places you didn't expect. The "supernatural" element of Jumpei's clairvoyance is minor and really just serves as the central metaphor in a fable about growth and transformation.
The film offers no explanation for this bit of "magic," and none is needed. Despite its mystical qualities, the film serves up a wonderful tale firmly grounded in the hard-won, quiet wisdom of real life.
4 Yaps
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