Memories of Matsuko Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Memories of Matsuko Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov February 15, 2011

Winner of three Japanese Academy Awards, Tetsuya Nakashima's "Memories of Matsuko" (2006) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Third Window Films. The supplemental features included with this release are: standard making of featurette; storyboard to film comparison; interview with Italian composer Gabriele Roberto; and the film's original Japanese theatrical trailer. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

Matsuko

Based on Muneki Yamada’s novel, Tetsuya Nakashima’s Memories of Matsuko is a strange hybrid of a film. It is bubbly, colorful and light, but at the same time incredibly sad and occasionally even depressing. Its narrative is fractured into several uneven episodes, each highlighting various human highs and lows. It feels like a contemporary Ozu film, but it has an unusually strong pop punk flavor.

Sho (Eita, Dear Doctor), a disillusioned guitarists living alone in Tokyo, is visited by his father, Norio (Teruyaki Kagawa, Tokyo Sonata), who asks him to clear the room of his murdered aunt, Matsuko (Miki Nakatani, Ringu), after he brings her ashes home. The room is small and littered with garbage, looking like a giant, strange photo album, full of clues pointing to a life of failures.

Unable to recall if they ever met, Sho begins reconstructing Matsuko’s life - relying mostly on his imagination and the words of those who knew her well.

A kinky punk rocker (Gori, Goemon) conveys to Sho that his late aunt was a lonely and unusually sad woman, who smelled weird and never threw out her trash. A beautiful porn actress (Asuka Kurosawa, A Snake of June) then fills another missing piece, insisting that Matsuko was the one and only real friend she ever had. Finally, Ryu (Yusuke Iseya, Across a Gold Prairie), a wacky yakuza gangster with a badly scarred face, confesses to Sho that he pushed Matsuko into the abyss of self-destruction. A narrator also assists Sho with a string of flashbacks from his mysterious aunt’s life.

In the hands of a Western director, Memories of Matsuko would have likely looked far more coherent - and thus dull and unbearably pretentious. The excess, chaos and odd emotional shifts in the film are actually what make it worth seeing; it is a bizarre yet beautiful phantasmagoria, bursting with creativity and imagination.

The film does have its weaknesses, though - some of the pop numbers are a tad too long, too Hollywood-esque, and Matsuko’s CGI-generated dreams so colorful that they hurt the eyes. After awhile, the mind also becomes overwhelmed by all the goings-on, because it becomes absolutely pointless constantly trying to separate the real from the unreal.

But the film has a spirit to die for. The energy in it is incredible and the excessive visual style second to none. It really is a ‘take it or leave it’ affair, no compromises, no excuses. And because it is so bold, so unconventional and atypical, it actually works.

The cast is great. Nakatani’s endless character transformations are very effective. During Matsuko’s final hours, she is absolutely stunning. Eita does a good job as the clueless, obsessed with porn youngster. Gori is hillarious. Kurosawa, however, is too elegant and too beautiful to play the reformed adult superstar.

The film also boasts a wonderful music score courtesy of Gabriele Roberto (Paco and the Magical Book) and Takeshi Shibuya.

Note: In 2007, Memories of Matsuko won three Japanese Academy Awards, including Best Actress (Miki Nakatani) and Best Music Score. The film also won Kinema Junpo Award for Best Actress.

Memories of Matsuko Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Tetsuya Nakashima's Memories of Matsuko arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Third Window Films.

Shot with Sony HDW-F900, Memories of Matsuko looks beautiful. Fine object detail is very good, clarity pleasing, and color reproduction outstanding. Some of the visuals are so rich that they almost hurt the eyes. Matsuko's final hours, in particular, look fantastic - the variety of yellows, blues, reds, greens, browns, and blacks were meant to be seen in 1080p. Edge-enhancement is not a serious issue of concern. Neither is macroblocking. I also did not see any traces of excessive noise reduction; despite the various manipulations, the image has pleasing depth and fluidity. Lastly, there are absolutely no stability issues to report in this review. Indeed, aside from a few minor compression artifact, the presentation is flawless. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your PS3 or SA regardless of your geographical location. For the record, there is no problematic PAL or 1080/50i content preceding the disc's main menu).

Memories of Matsuko Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one audio track on this Blu-ray disc: Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (with a tiny portions of English). For the record, Third Window Films have provided optional English subtitles for the main feature.

The Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is wonderful. The bass is potent and punchy, the surround channels very active and very effective, and the high-frequencies not overdone. There are a number of scenes in the film that really are quite impressive (the black crows sequence was great), so keep your remote close to you. The dialog is crisp, clean, stable, and exceptionally easy to follow. There are no balance issues with Gabriele Roberto and Takeshi Shibuya's music score either. Lastly, I did not detect any disturbing pops, cracks, or audio dropouts to report in this review. The English translation is also very good.

Memories of Matsuko Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Note: All of the supplemental features are placed on a separate SDVD and encoded in PAL. Therefore, in order to view them you much have a Region-Free SDVD or Blu-ray player.

• Making of - a standard featurette with raw footage from the shooting of the film, as well as various comments from director Tetsuya Nakashima and various cast and crew members. In Japanese, with imposed English subtitles. (31 min).

• Storyboard to Film Comparison - in Japanese, with imposed English subtitles. (13 min).

• Trailer - the original Japanese theatrical trailer for Memories of Matsuko. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles. (2 min).

• Interview - Italian composer Gabriele Roberto answer a series of questions about the soundtrack of Memories of Matsuko. In English, not subtitled. (22 min).

• Trailers - a massive gallery of trailers for other Third Window Film releases.

Memories of Matsuko Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

What a film! It is as quirky as Tsai Ming-liang's The Wayward Cloud and as poetic as Peter Chan's Perhaps Love. Yet it is distinctively Japanese. The Blu-ray disc herein reviewed, courtesy of British distributors Third Window Films, looks and sounds terrific. Now, when are we going to see Oasis, Green Fish, Peppermint Candy, and Kick the Moon on Blu-ray? HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.