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(pants)
- It's so common trick,
after five, where's the script?
After five years.
Five years is like five years.
It's only two of those that you plan,
still, the door inside Japan, getting inside Japan,
the sliding doors of Japan remain firmly closed.
This track, jog and think of lines of commentary,
think of ways to film
the film that wasn't happening.
To get out of my hotel room, to stop getting depressed,
to stop drinking, to stop taking sleeping pills.
Most days, I seem to be getting nowhere,
and most nights I just wanted to fly home.
Now, Grace pushed me away, taken Ted (mumbles).
'Cause I filmed them in the hot tub.
Which seemed completely innocent to me.
And now I've got Naoki.
So, I've started to film Naoki again.
And I love Naoki.
I'm so happy.
I feel great, left me here,
'cause now I'm filming Naoki again.
He seemed to be the only person I was filming
who didn't judge me, who didn't expect me to be Japanese.
And who didn't mind me making my stupid British mistakes.
(mumbles) he tell me privately last night,
he doesn't like British people, but he likes me, ha!
I'd come to Japan to make a film
about what makes this crazy place tick,
but two years on, I'm more confused than ever.
(sings in foreign language)
My mission was to make a film about Tokyo
for BBC and then HKTV,
but having failed, I'd come 300 miles north
to a rural town called Yamagata.
Wow, this is tiny street.
This was my last attempt at getting inside Japan.
I've been told about Naoki,
a person who'd broken all the rules,
a radical Communist regime
who'd gone on to be a successful entrepreneur,
but when I met him,
he was working part time at the post office.
Are you collecting insurance money?
- Not insurance, fee over there.
Yeah, yeah, insurance money.
I have no insurance (chuckles).
(scooter rumbles)
- Hey, slow down!
Slow down!
(sings in foreign language)
Is it okay to take a break?
- It's okay.
- Legal?
- I don't know about legal.
But it's natural.
- Right.
In a time when it was totally unacceptable to divorce,
he'd been married three times
and was now struggling in a relationship
with a girl half his age.
(soft upbeat music)
She wants you to get a second job, yeah?
- Huh?
- Your girlfriend.
- Ah, yeah.
- Wants you to get job number two.
- Yes, she wants.
I'm troublesome for her.
She hates me.
(Sean chuckles)
- Do you hate her?
- No, I need her.
- Why?
- To survive the fucking this country.
- Now, he was a breath of fresh air,
a rebel was a rare thing here.
- He was a Maoist.
(laughs)
It's very the extreme people.
You were making bombing.
Put fire, and threw that overhead.
Because we love baseball,
the underthrow is not so good.
(laughs)
- Who were you bombing?
The police?
- No, big company.
- Really?
- Yes.
- It was rare to be invited to a Japanese home,
but Naoki wanted to show me his.
He told me to treat carefully, things were sensitive.
She's asleep.
I was shocked by the tiny room with no windows
where he'd been living with his girlfriend Yoshie
for the last five years.
When his last business went under,
she'd saved him from being homeless.
But now she'd had to take a second job to support him.
Their situation was the last thing
I expected to find in Japan,
the second richest nation on earth.
(people speak in foreign language)
Now he was forced to take the only job he could find,
part time at the Central Yamagata post office.
Part time here means working seven hours a day
for just 3.50 pounds an hour.
(bell rings)
Until now, I felt locked out of Japan,
but naoki was keen to get me inside.
(light upbeat music) (speaks in foreign language)
Each day starts at 8:00 a.m. with early morning exercises.
It was like landing on the moon:
Grown men dancing in suits.
Was this modern high tech Japan?
(speaks in foreign language)
The Japanese view the workplace as one happy family.
But as a foreigner here,
it didn't feel like home to me.
(light upbeat music) (speaks in foreign language)
I wondered how Naoki, a life-long outsider,
would cope with the pressure
of being a part of this Japanese family.
- It's kind of role playing,
same thing every day.
Some people crazy, go to hospital.
- Really?
- Yeah.
Depress.
- Really?
- Yeah, because every day check from the boss,
Why did you get every day zero?
Every day zero, fuck you!
You are not human!
You are under the animal.
Why?
You are stealing your salary, every day steal, stolen.
Yeah, depressed, depressed, depressed.
- So they go to mental hospital?
- Yes.
30,000 people kill themself.
- 30,000?
- Yeah, 30,000.
A big shame.
But you gave me this fucking capitalist system
one hundred years ago (chuckles).
First the East India company,
and after China, after Japan.
Open the country.
- Yeah.
(Naoki chuckles)
And now you're rich.
- Is this rich?
Is military rich?
Is good system?
You gave me.
- Sorry.
(Naoki chuckles)
(upbeat, dramatic music)
Just over one hundred years ago, Japan was a closed country,
until the West forced it to open its doors
and trade with the rest of the world.
It was then it adopted our capitalist system,
that has made it the second richest nation on earth.
(sings in foreign language)
Naoki ran a number of successful businesses.
But the economy collapsed in 1992.
And like thousands of others, he lost everything.
Now, there's more pressure on everyone to work harder.
As jobs for life are no more in Japan,
Naoki took the only work he could find,
part time collecting life insurance premiums
for the post office.
He gets paid six times less than the full timers.
But at least he is free
from having to meet their daily sales targets.
- I realise it one moment,
they have no good results.
They walk like this.
- Do you think they are successful today?
- They?
No (chuckles).
- Why?
- Too early.
(speaks in foreign language)
(scooter rumbles)
I'm free!
(scooter rumbles)
This is Yamagata city.
You can see the big one building.
- Naoki wanted to show me his hometown
and pointed out the six-bedroom house where he used to live.
After the family business went bust,
he fell out with his brother.
He hasn't spoken to him since.
Today, he has no one left in the city,
except his girlfriend Yoshie.
- Our family, my brother, me had three houses in the city.
And two company, on, two, thee,
two company, one bar.
And I had a BMW.
I bought the BMW new with cash, 70 million yen.
- Do you remember Naoki's bar?
Is that where you met Naoki for the first time?
Is that where you met, in your bar?
(phone ringtone) - So, so.
Customer.
- Customer?
- I was told not to make a sound
when Yoshie's clients called up.
To them she was single.
Since Naoki had moved in,
she had to supplement his income by taking extra jobs.
- Customer believes she is single.
So every night, every day they invite
and propose to get to date.
- But they just want to talk
and they just want to eat,
they don't want anything else, or do they want to--
- Yeah, just to talk and to eat and sing a song together.
- Nothing else?
- Nothing else.
- No kissing?
- No kissing.
Sometimes they touch.
Do they have a kiss?
Her boss suggest her, like here.
- Keep her legs together.
- Yeah.
This is so polite.
- Right.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Everything, you have to compliment for their customer.
(chuckles)
- Eye shadow (chuckles).
- Are you happy?
- I'm busy, I have no time
to think about the fucking way.
- Are you happy in your first job more
or your second job more?
- Enjoy.
I can be female in night time.
Every nights, every day, work, work, work
to get money.
It's poverty, our level.
- How many hours working together all,
day job and night job together?
- 15.
- Hours?
- Hours a day.
- It's tough!
- Yeah, it's capitalism now.
She wants to sleep.
But have to go.
- Yoshie was always nervous
when she was out with Naoki,
in case she was seen with him by her regular customers.
Where's she going?
- Yeah, you can take a film,
they will meet soon.
- So, they're a long way,
they're a long way away, don't worry.
She'd known this customer as long as Naoki.
He'd take her for expensive sushi meals,
and then on to her club,
where she'd be bought drinks all night.
(soft music)
(sings in foreign language)
In a society where people find it hard to talk,
I found it strange to be in a bar,
where Yoshie's job was to talk,
mainly to married men.
The bar, another room with no windows
felt like a release from a highly competitive world outside,
where it is totally acceptable to be drunk
in order to unwind.
(sings in foreign language)
But that must make you feel terrible.
But how do you keep the strength to carry on?
Because it's a job.
(hairdryer swooshes)
- It seems like a relentless schedule of work.
After five hours of sleep they were up again
and off like clockwork.
Naoki makes up for his small income by being househusband,
a difficult role for a 56-year-old Japanese man to accept.
Each morning he must make Yoshie's breakfast
and lunch box before doing the laundry.
He told me she'd sometimes tease him
about his poorly paid job at the post office.
But he had nowhere else to go,
almost totally reliant on her.
I can't help but noticing
there was not physical contact between them.
Kiss him goodbye.
Kiss.
(chuckles)
Bye-bye. - Bye-bye.
- Today Yoshie works 15 hours in three jobs,
Naoki just seven hours at the post office,
then back home to do the house work and get the dinner on.
Do you enjoy being with her?
- I don't want to be homeless
and I need a partner.
- She's stranded you in a way.
- Yeah, she gave me job (chuckles) to survive.
- Do you think she needs you?
Do you keep her strength?
- Me, maybe I am not confident.
I have not confident to give her this kind of strength.
- Naoki said they'd get an hour together between jobs
which they'd usually spend sleeping.
Since starting at the post office,
he said they'd lost an important part of their relationship.
- These days I have no sex (chuckles).
Doesn't work (chuckles).
Broken.
- Oh dear me.
- Depressing the mental disease, like this.
Doesn't work, my baby (chuckles).
- Must be difficult for you if you're so young,
when he was your age, he was very active.
- If I have more kind of stable life,
I can do the sex, having sex, maybe.
- She said she doesn't need sex.
- She has to say in front of your camera.
She's young.
But I'm afraid.
Yes, she loves me, but she needs,
sometimes she needed a friend of the sex.
I'm afraid, I worry about
having a new boyfriend.
- Tried Viagra?
- Yoshie?
No.
- So, you're ready for work?
- I have to go sushi shop.
- Soon?
- Soon.
- To meet the customer?
- Yes.
He said I envy you.
- I don't think so.
Tonight's a busy night?
- No.
- Quiet?
- Yes.
- What time are you finishing?
- Twelve.
- Okay, see you later.
Have a nice night.
- See you later.
Naoki said he'd never talk so openly with Yoshie.
Normally she doesn't like to talk.
He said he could never be sure
what she was thinking.
(cars rumble)
- My life, when I have a wife, I talk, talk, talk.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- And this life no talk?
- Yoshie dislike the talking.
She told me, Noisy, shut up, like this.
I love talking.
- Why is she with you do you think?
- I don't know.
I am able to say, it not my speaking.
Maybe I'm useful.
Maybe she loves me.
But she cannot allow me my income.
Everyday we have kind of the stress and struggle, and--
- Does she blame you?
- Yes, too much drink every day.
She was tired, she is tired.
Maybe tonight, after drinking,
she became very strong to express her true mind this time.
(Sean laughs)
- You.
- Maybe I love her?
- Maybe you love her?
- Sleep.
(coins clink)
(speaks in foreign language)
- Compliance.
- What's your favourite word?
- Compliance.
Compliance.
- Compliance to when he touches you
and says, Did you shave today?
- Yes, yes, before,
out of the compliance.
- You've got to be well shaved every day.
- Yes.
I touch here.
Who?
Hi, Mister Sato-san,
you have to shave.
Fuck you, I wanted say, Fuck you, it's my business.
But I couldn't say.
- What did you then say?
- I'm afraid of fire.
- What did you say?
- Yes (chuckles).
Yes, man, I will.
- Oh dear.
- Yeah, it's miserable.
I'll show you.
(speaks in foreign language)
Broken.
- By her.
- You can take this one and this one and you can repair
and after like this, different colour.
- I was thinking, No, no!
The glasses are expensive, expensive,
and over 50 (mumbles), like--
(laughs)
- She laughs!
Your fault!
Your fault, you know?
- Oh, could you give me one of those once?
- This one, no, this one.
- Each evening Yoshie takes her calm down pill,
an antidepressant that guarantees a good six-hour sleep.
(Yoshie speaks in foreign language)
How long does it take to work?
She said she wasn't alone.
Many of her friends and work colleagues do the same.
Within minutes Yoshie went into a mad eating frenzy.
Naoki seemed to used to it.
He said the pill also causes memory loss.
She doesn't remember anything in the morning.
It's a funny situation in here.
- Yeah.
We cannot get the special treat from government, cannot get.
If we are European, the nation give me
a kind of a welfare, kind of a mental.
- Psychologists, psychiatrists support.
- So many supports.
- They don't really exist here, right?
- Yeah, yeah.
So, firstly, I have to protect her.
But I'm afraid she has a kind of disease,
so I can't to separate, I can't leave her.
Who does look after her?
I'm happy you interview me.
So if possible, you report all over the world.
This is Japan.
It's a part of Japan.
It's true.
- Especially, poor.
- Not special poor.
This is usual poor in Japan (chuckles).
- Japan prided itself
on being the most egalitarian society in the world.
But the gap between rich and poor
has never been wider than today.
What happens now?
- The machine takes out the husk.
- Naoki's generation was part of an economic army
to rebuild this place after the war, making it rich.
But after the economy crashed in the early 1990s,
there was no safety net
for the thousands who became homeless.
Naoki says he would be with them
if it wasn't for Yoshie.
- This is student, 10,000 people.
- 10,000?
Occasionally Naoki would look at a political films,
he'd helped make in the 1960s.
I was surprised by the scale of protest here.
A riot police.
- Yeah, this is very strong.
- Did the police come and remove you?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Violently?
- Yeah, usually.
- Did you hit them?
- Yeah, they hit me.
- Did you hit them back?
- So, I'm crazy now (chuckles).
Every night, we had demonstration with city (mumbles).
- But the point of the demonstration
was to ask the Americans to go home.
- Yes.
To stop the repair for Vietnam tank.
- Oh, for Vietnam!
This was a stark contrast to Japan today,
where everyone seems so scared and obedient.
Allowing me to film his situation,
seemed to be the only political act Naoki had left.
- We're terrible poor.
New class, working poor.
- I realise, Naoki and Yoshie
were part of the hidden underclass, called the new poor.
Yoshie's three jobs net her 11,000 pounds a year.
Naoki get's less than half of that.
When it was about survival, they clearly worked as a team.
But each month Yoshie would escape to her hometown,
causing tension between them.
- Next Sunday is memorial day
in her hometown.
- Oh, next Sunday.
- Next Sunday.
- Is she going home?
- Yes.
- Should we go?
- No, the family deny me.
- Wow.
So we can't go?
- Yeah.
- Why the family deny him?
- I don't know.
(chuckles)
They hate my experiences.
- What experiences?
Oh, the divorce? - So many divorces.
- So, you're a black sheep.
You're like a black sheep.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(bright, upbeat music)
(sings in foreign language)
- Yoshie told me why Naoki feared meeting her father.
Not only was he a true blue Conservative,
but they were the same age.
She said her parents knew of their relationship
but preferred not to mention his name.
- Natto.
- I'll try.
(speaks in foreign language)
Look, he's moved away, it's dangerous.
The Japanese love
to give foreigners nattos.
It's a traditional dish made from rotting soya beans.
It was like eating a big ball of snot.
- Beautiful.
Beautiful.
(people chuckle)
It felt like I was sitting in Naoki's place.
It was bizarre they could happily welcome me, the foreigner,
but not Naoki.
Yoshie was frustrated with Naoki.
She said his fears of meeting her family
meant their relationship would always be on the rocks.
(dog barks)
Yoshie's father didn't speak to me for most of my visit,
but as I put my camera down,
he asked me a very strange question.
The price of Viagra in London.
Maybe he and Naoki have more in common,
than just being the same age.
Thank you very much for having us, see you next time, yeah?
(speaks in foreign language)
(laughs)
Why did you get jealous.
- Because I need her.
Because here, it's not history,
it's not alive, it's not,
she is my life.
Because maybe, you know, getting old.
I have no plan to visit her hometown.
- Why?
- I don't know.
It's kind of a decision.
- Why?
'Cause I think her father would accept you.
He's very easy going.
- No.
Your opinion easy, not easy.
Not easy, same age!
- It's difficult for you, but if you want to do it,
you got to do it, otherwise don't do it.
- No, I cannot.
If I had a daughter,
I would say, Stop, that's fucking guy (chuckles).
Rubbish.
I knew.
Who can recommend the Naoki?
Nobody can.
Nobody can recommend, get along together good with Naoki.
Nobody.
- Why?
- I don't know.
- I do.
- You do, just only you, you crazy (chuckles).
People hates normally, people hate anarchism.
People hate the terrorists.
Like that, it's common sense.
- You're not a terrorist.
- No (chuckles).
- You're not an anarchist anymore.
- Not anarchist.
- You're a postman.
- Yeah (chuckles), yeah, postman.
Part time.
(clock rings)
- This was so far removed
from the workplace I knew in Britain.
It was like Communism pretending to be Capitalism.
(speaks in foreign language)
I felt underneath the surface the fragility
that no one wanted to acknowledge.
- Someone, he (mumbles),
sweater, he has disease, disease guy.
- Very depressed.
- Depressed.
- Is he recovered?
- Maybe now, at the hospital.
He went to hospital, very big.
- So he was off work for a few months.
- Yeah, something with the medicine.
He gets, sometimes he doesn't wake up in the morning.
- So he never comes in.
- Yeah.
- Shit.
(speaks in foreign language)
(soft pensive music)
Naoki told me he'd been bullied at work too.
He tried talking to Yoshie about it,
but she was too tired listening to everyone else.
(soft pensive music)
He introduced me to a workmate who'd got ill with stress
and would spend his breaks sleeping.
This man would spend weekends in the mountains
picking bags of sticky mushrooms
and insist on giving them to us.
(soft pensive music)
As a Japanese saying goes, the nail that stands out
must be hammered down.
(soft pensive music)
(sighs)
- Tonight we will go to mushroom man.
Promise.
- Oh my God.
- I promised to meet the mushroom man.
- Okay.
Oh, no, more mushrooms!
Does he know it's there?
- Nameko.
- Tell him we started to call him mushroom man.
(chuckles)
(laughs)
- Oh, it's beautiful!
Did you get it in the mountain?
Wow, you picked it.
Oh, wow, wow.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Burned out.
- I was worried about Naoki.
He seemed isolated.
I felt he and Yoshie were drifting further apart.
- I will stop to argue.
Because I'm afraid she retaliates.
She has a place to run away.
Her home, hometown.
I have no, just here.
Or she decide to fuck me away.
I have to go.
- Where?
- On the road, maybe.
I couldn't borrow.
No bank, no friend, no home.
So this is a way to go to homeless.
- One step to homeless.
- Yeah, it's very near, my position is very, very close.
- Naoki was desperate to talk.
Yoshie was pretending nothing was wrong.
I knew they'd hardly spoken a word for two weeks.
It was stalemate at home.
Naoki knew what he had to do
(upbeat music)
(sings in foreign language)
Meeting the father is a big deal in Japan,
especially when you are the same age.
I'd heard about a Japanese custom called omiyage,
the giving of a small gift when you visit someone's house.
I'd brought something with me to help break the ice.
(upbeat music) (sings in foreign language)
I've chosen my omiyage carefully,
something that both appreciate.
- I was thinking of present to come and to bring you,
can you translate?
(speaks in foreign language)
Chocolates were not appropriate.
After the conversation we had last time,
I found a really good gift for you.
(speaks in foreign language)
Special present.
(speaks in foreign language)
- Oh!
- He knows already!
(chuckles)
- Thank you, thank you!
- The Viagra had gotten Naoki and Yoshie's dad
talking straight away.
- His, he doesn't work, like Naoki.
- Oh, right, right.
- This neighbourhood (murmurs) around here,
his family is very strange.
(laughs)
- Why?
- He thinks it's important
to make this with the family, openly talking about--
- Open, open, open.
- Family photo, ready?
Now squeeze together!
(speaks in foreign language)
Squeeze together!
(speaks in foreign language)
Say cheese.
- Cheese!
- Okay.
- Slippers!
- Slippers.
(light cheerful music)
(sings in foreign language)
- I was touched that Yoshie's father
was so accepting.
He even offered to be my Japanese dad.
In the end, both Naomi and I had found a family in Japan.
(sings in foreign language)
(cheerful music) (sings in foreign language)
- This is love.
- Is this love?
This must be love.
- Must be love, yeah.
- If you're doing all of this, yeah.
- Love is war.
Love is war.
- Yeah.
- Not peace.
- Yeah.
- Killing each other.
So I don't like that this way.
I love peace.
So if possible, I hide continually.
I'm like shadow.
- Stay in the shadow.
- Yeah.
But you, you like it,
broken my shadow (chuckles).
- Sorry.
I think it's good, though.
Good.
(cheerful music)
(sings in foreign language)