The Dark Harbour

The film has an idiosyncratic style all of its own. A grey realism (the darkness of the derelict harbour) and an occasionally colourful nostalgia (in the bar or the living room) are linked together in a natural way. Naturalness is in general a characteristic in this comedy that occasionally seems too real for a comedy and too comic to be true.
The protagonist is the fisherman Manzo Ishiguro. He's a fisherman because his father was too. A big mouth and a small heart. He's going on 40, but still doesn't have a wife or girlfriend. Maybe he's never had a girlfriend. When the administrators of the small and chill fishing village organise a dating evening in the local bar, he decides to try his luck. With little conviction, however, and doomed to failure. Painful and comic in his clumsiness.
Suddenly he has a complete family. Mitsuko and Masao, a single mother and her little boy, have just crawled into his house. They want to stay. First he throws them out in the street, but he soon realises this is an unexpected opportunity for love and homey happiness.
The humour of the film - and it is undoubtedly humorous - is to be found in details, in these minor deviations from everyday patterns. The director laughs with his characters, but not at them. It's a film about love, and the maker obviously loves his clumsy characters. (GjZ)