It is obvious that Freud utilized the development of psychoanalysis to try to solve the problem of the figure of the father – the structural inability to equate the real father with the symbolic father; the name-of-the-father.

In contemporary times, the father remains a contradictory figure for many subjects. Taro Kawasaki and Eisuke Sakauchi deliver a beautiful illustration of how the subject’s social inhibitions are connected to his inability to come to peace with the failed subject the father is. In Faraway Family, the subject who struggles with the image of the father is none other than Kanata Sakauchi (Yukihiro Aizawa), a second-year high school student who has just transferred to a school in Yamagata prefecture. By mere chance, Kanata is coupled with Riku Toda (Masato Yamauchi), the son of his homeroom teacher (Kimura Tomoki), to clean the third-floor stairs. While Kanata tries to fend his verbal invitation off, Riku slowly succeeds in making him leave his solitary position – the lone wolf – and speak.  

The opening of the narrative reveals Kanata as a subject that negates himself in the societal field – he has no need for friends, he has no (need for) hobbies. Yet, he does not simply push the Other away, he actively tries to evade the eye of the Other by becoming the very emptiness that lingers within him – an absent presence. The reason why Kanata isolates himself at school is revealed early in the narrative via a surprising enunciation: It’ll hurt too much when they’re gone. The refusal to bond with others is determined by a wish to avoid the traumatic repetition of separation or, to put it more correctly, the creation of a situation that echoes and amplifies the loss of his father.

The ease by which Kanata can uphold this self-imposed isolation, this defence against future pain and suffering, is due to the absence of a desire that pushes him to the Other; he lacks the very desire to address signifiers to an Other and end his protective deadlock (Narra-note 1). He only ever talks when he is forced to, e.g. his teacher asking him to introduce himself to his new classmates, some girls asking about his hanger, … etc. What allows Kanata to address something of his subjectivity to Riku is the very revelation that his father is a contradictory figure – fatherly in his job as teacher, yet a near absence for his own son Riku, and that his mother is absent (Narra-note 2). In other words, he sees himself reflected in Riku’s situation (Narra-note 3). 

The flashbacks that are peppered throughout the narrative grant the spectator a glance at the familial dynamic that determines Kanata’s current position of societal inhibition. What stands out in these flashes to the past is the subdued conflict between the father (Yuta Watanabe) and his grandfather (Yuki Watanabe). Kanata, the object of their conflict, cannot but find himself caught between two different fatherly figures and conflicting desires (Narra-note 4). Yet, the encounter with Riku might allow him to reframe the past and fabricate a fatherly image that helps him in his subjective trajectory (Psycho-note 1).   

Faraway Family offers a compelling exploration of how the dead father can cause subjective struggles and inhibitions, but the way Kanata’s subjective trajectory develops might confuse some spectators. The confusion is a result from the directors’ choice to merely allude to Kanata’s subjective change through the tonal change of the flashbacks. Some spectators might not realize Kanata’s subjective position has radically changed when death rears its ugly head again.

The composition of Faraway Family stands out due to its shaky framing (Cine-note 1). The documentary-style of framing does not only firmly ground the narrative, reverberating quite literally the 3/11 earthquake that caused material, societal, and subjective suffering, but also establishes a frame that amplifies any kind of emotional expression and makes silences touchingly effective.

Yet, the fictive nature of Faraway Family is felt in the way Taro Awasaki and Eisuke Sakauchi cuts their scenes together. Luckily, as the truth always has a structure of fiction, the cutting does not diminish the touching impact Kanata’s subjective trajectory has on the spectator. The fictive quality is also emphasized the few visual decorations our directors utilize to heighten the emotional impact of certain moments or, to put it better, to reverberate the impact of certain situations on Riku as subject more strongly.

Faraway Family is a very touching narrative that explores the frail position of the father and how his structural failure can cause subjective struggles and inhibitions. While the narrative is a bit too evocative for its own good, the director’s duo do deliver a visual experience that will linger in the spectator’s mind long after the credits have faded out.  

Notes

Narra-note 1: It is not uncertainty concerning how to express himself that inhibits Kanata, but the lack an address to share his subject with. If the struggles to talk about his father, it is because of his unresolved ambivalence towards him.

Narra-note 2: When Toda acts as a father, it is to enact an act of violence (e.g. hit him, throw him out the house, … etc.) and remind him of his duty to fulfill the desire (i.e. enter Tokyo University) he imposed on him.

Narra-note 3: Kanata cannot understand the guilt that haunts Riku because he sees himself reflected in Riku’s familial situation. This imaginary reflection, which does establish a bond between them, blinds Kanata for Riku’s lingering wish to feel loved by his father. As this father’s love is so important to him, he rather believes himself to be a failure than accept that his father is failing him.

Narra-note 4: What makes the loss of both father-figures so hard for Kanata is the fact that their last conflictual interaction turned around their desires for him. What Kanata struggles with is thus not simply the loss of the father, but also with how to deal with the fathers’ desire.

Psycho-note 1: It is thus not merely the loss of his father that underpins Kanata’s social inhibition, but his inability to fabricate an image of the dead father that helps him on his path of coming into being as a subject.    

Cine-note 1: The opening of the narrative offers an effective contrast between a concatenation of static shots that emphasize the peaceful nature of the scenery and the rough shakiness that signals the destructive intrusion of an earthquake.