Nobody Knows

Midnight Eye review... Nobody Knows (2004, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda. "...Like his previous film Distance (2001), which involved an Aum-like cult, Hirokazu Kore-eda's Nobody Knows was inspired by a real case of child abandonment in Tokyo, 1988. As with Distance, the headline event being referenced serves as purely the catalyst for a much more personal tale. With Nobody Knows, Kore-eda took the real case, mulled it over in his head for fifteen years and used it as only the skeleton around which he built this piece of fiction, filmed with a documentary eye. The plot is simple: scatty single mum Keiko (television talento You) and 12-year-old son Akira (Yagira in the performance that made him the youngest ever Best Actor winner at Cannes) move into a nice new apartment in Tokyo. What the landlord doesn't know is that Keiko has three other children hidden in her flat, reserved Kyoko (Kitaura), rambunctious Shigeru (Kimura) and the youngest sister, Yuki (Shimizu). When Keiko takes off with a new boyfriend, Akira is left with the responsibility of managing the household and looking after his younger siblings."