SAIKO! THE LARGE FAMILY
Hiding in the frame
Spoilers for Saiko! The Large Family (2008)
This feels like a particularly suitable topic this week, as I recently went to see Osgood Perkin’s excellent Longlegs, another slow-burn horror film that encourages you to scour every frame for scares. I won’t spoil too much about Longlegs, but Perkins draws the audience into this mindset in the opening scene, having Nicolas Cage’s serial killer appear in the backdrop, sticking his head around the corner.
Not only does this first moment encourage the audience to check the background for more glimpses, but Perkins works with cinematographer Andrés Arochi to have open doorways, corridors, and windows in the frame, funnelling the viewer’s eyeliner down these narrow openings and providing ample opportunities for subtle scares.
I bring this up because our film essay this week looks at Toshikazu Nagae’s 2009 mockumentary Saiko! The Large Family, part of the Banned from Broadcast series. While there are plenty of overtly disturbing details in the film, Nagae excels at meticulously detailed shots, with clues to the overarching story hidden throughout.
The film sees a Canadian filmmaker (Veronica Addison) following the Ura family, where seven of the eight children, the mother and the stepfather live under one roof and seem to fall victim to various misfortunes.
Before I go into more detail, I should give credit to the YouTuber ReignBot, whose wonderful video on the film acted as my introduction.
Their video does an excellent job of breaking down not only the main story but also revealing some of the clues hidden within the film. These include moments where the mother (Junko Takai) appears in the background, ensuring that the children do not reveal any secrets; the knives stabbed into fruit, the number of which matches the number of children in the house; and translations of the calligraphy done by the oldest son Gouki (Junpei Utsu).
There’s so much within this film that ReignBot encourages everyone to watch it – freely available on YouTube and linked down below – and discover some of the secrets themselves.
One of the biggest mysteries revolves around what happens to the mother at the end of the film. A family holiday is cut short when she falls from a cliff, leaving her fighting for her life. It’s a final twist that is, hilariously, almost ignored by the stilted presenter as she quickly wraps up the film. However, the mother's fate says a lot about what has come before.
Throughout Saiko!, it is implied that the mother coerced her oldest children, Gouki, Ringo (Sayaka Fukita), and Rie (Rimi Fukunaga), to poison their father and may be planning to do the same to her new husband (Hideaki Kawashima). The fact that Ringo left the household and only comes home at the behest of her stepfather, suggests that she fears her mother’s actions, as does Gouki’s decline into inclusiveness.
Perhaps the most overt clue is Rie’s actions. Rie assaults her stepfather throughout the film, something that Addison often shrugs off, and it’s not a stretch to believe that she is trying to scare off the stepfather.
So, while we never get a full explanation of why the mother might want to kill each of her husbands – insurance money seems unlikely as she must wait several years for the payout – there appear to be plenty of reasons why someone might want to harm the mother.
Like everything else in the film, there is no overt answer given to who pushed the mother off the cliff. However, Nagae does hide the answer in the background. You see, Gouki has finally left his room and come along on the family holiday. He’s shown in much of the footage wearing a white t-shirt and carrying around a baseball bat, as explained earlier in the film as the mother explains that he wanted to be a professional player.
While nothing is revealed in the final moments of the film, during the credits, a series of polaroids are shown. It’s a clever move; while we’ve been conditioned to look out for post credits scenes by Hollywood, it was less ubiquitous when Saiko! was released. Iron Man (Jon Favreau, 2008) had been out for less than a year, and unless viewers had clocked on to some of the other background clues, they would likely have turned off the film as soon as Addison gave her final piece to the camera.
What several of the photos reveal is a figure in the background, clad in a white t-shirt. Notably, this is only in images where the mother is also missing from the frame. On reflection, it can only be Gouki who would attack the mother. While he has kept quiet about her actions, he has also rebelled against the idea of a happy family by locking himself away in his room.
Ringo may have escaped the family after aiding her mother, but upon her arrival, she falls back in line. Helping to spy on the stepfather and adding the family’s ‘special spice mix’ to meals meant only for him. She whispers to Gouki when delivering his meals, so she may be involved in planning the attack on the mother. On the surface, however, she remains as susceptible to the woman’s influence.
While Rie has tried to scare the stepfather off, this is likely due to her inability to fight back against the mother. After she breaks down and apologises to the stepfather, she becomes a more active member of the family unit. This could be due to her age. The murder of the father happened seven years prior, and Rie is a few years younger than Gouki and Ringo, meaning she may only suspect what the mother has been doing.
Again, none of this is confirmed, but then Saiko! only ever hints at what could be going on. However, the glimpses of Gouki in the final moments are a satisfying payoff in a film that rewards only the most attentive.
Writer/director: Toshikazu Nagae
Starring: Veronica Addison, Chiharu Ariga, Sayaka Fukita, Rimi Fukunaga, Hideaki Kawashima, Ayato Kosugi, Junko Takai, Junpei Utsu
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