Fish farm dude ranch milk bar

I don’t know the land means a lot to me. Connective. There’s something there. Siblings fighting over it. Estranged mom returns the son near her as she hangs linens bedsheets bright washed on the clothesline to dry outdoors. Is it possible for everyone to be back together again? Does fate bring the motorist back to prevent YUKATA from finding a way to make his own happiness by destroying what he’s built on the land? Thinking about how Yukata acts like FUJIMORI dumping hazmat there isn’t a big deal.

 

License to Live (1998, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) is a tender mumblecore existential comedy about youth the theme of which seems to be leave the past behind you and pour your kindness and heart into the here and now wherever you are because it’ll be gone before you know it and those who cross your path and yourself the mutual exchange interactions will be all you have left once they or you are gone. 

     This film sets itself apart as cinema early on if you consider how generic the premise of someone waking up from a coma after ten years could otherwise be handled. Dude the way Kôji Yakusho plays Fujimori sitting in that hospital room when Yukata asks him about all these major news historic events and to each his lackadaisical response is always like yeah so what who cares whatever type reactions. I think it’s kind of punk. Current events are so boring. Hey can’t I laugh this is a comedy? 

     I wanna say the motorist sets up one of the most often recurring themes running throughout Kurosawa’s films that is something like old people being selfish stubborn in conflict with youth feeling stifled like it prevents any meaningful connection genuine sincere reciprocity of existing in harmony with one another. And what his youth do in reaction to all of it. License to Live feels like it belongs in a loose mumblecore disaffected youth trilogy along with Barren Illusion (1999, Kurosawa) and Bright Future (2002, Kurosawa).