Janus Nolasco
Directed by Lawrence Fajardo and shown during the 2020 Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino, Kintsugi (2020) tells the story of Dante (JC Santos), a Filipino who works in a family-run pottery company in Saga, Japan and enters a relationship with Harue (Hero Nishiuchi), the daughter of his boss. The guiding metaphor of the film, kintsugi means, “to repair with gold” and refers to the practice of putting back together a broken object and highlighting the cracks in gold. It is about accepting brokenness and imperfections, and seeing these “flaws” as part of the object itself. The occasion for the metaphor comes after Dante breaks a cup. Harue mends it via kintsugi, explaining that “repairing broken things is just like apologizing. It also restores relationships.” He advises Dante to “remember how it was restored, not how it was broken,” and shares that “gold emphasizes how what was broken is made whole again.”
This is also a commendable philosophy of self-help and self-healing, and the film’s deployment of this art also works as a homage to, and a promotion of, Japanese culture. Shot mainly in Saga in Western Japan, Kintsugi involved the Saga Prefectural Film Commission, The Saga Prefectural Government, the Fukuoka Film Commission, and a few other Japanese organizations. Their involvement arguably dovetails with the Japanese government’s 2013 policy to promote tourism and help boost the economy. Indeed, “visitor arrivals tripled from 2013 to 2018” to reach 31 million. True enough, Kintsugi showcases—for Filipinos—the beauty and tranquility of rural Japan, all captured through the cinematography of Boy Yniguez. Exemplifying what Alvin Yapan elsewhere called “the tourist gaze,” Kintsugi showcases what amounts to an obligatory scene featuring cherry blossoms, and other still-cam scenes featuring the landscape of Saga prefecture. The film is one of several recent Filipino productions set in Japan, the others being Kita Kita (2017) and Between Maybes (2019).
Tourism of course is only one part of it. While much has been made of kintsugi as an admirable philosophy of life, the film is, perhaps more importantly, a meditation on Philippines-Japan relations in general, and the life of Filipinos working in Japan in particular. The rather tragic ending of Kintsugi highlights the precariousness of Filipino migrants in the country. It is a theme that writer Herlyn Alegre touched on in Imbisibol (2015), and which has been a subject of much scholarship since the 1980s (see, among many others, Lambino 2015; Faier 2007; Vilog 2014; Celero 2021).
As Dante and Harue pursue their relationship, his contract is terminated by his boss, Harue’s father. Earlier in the film, Dante had to return to the Philippines in order to take care of—and eventually say goodbye to—his sick and dying wife. He is away for a month, and upon his return, he is told that this lengthy absence may affect his contract renewal. Dante had apparently lied, however, because his employer knows that he had to take care of his mother. But he was not fired then and there. His contract was only terminated much later, after Harue learns that Dante actually has/had a wife. By this time, Harue’s marriage to a childhood friend, Ryo, had been arranged. She did not want to, but betrayed by Dante’s dishonesty, she breaks up with him and agrees to marry Ryo.
Although the film is not explicit on this, one suspects that Dante is then fired not just because of his dishonesty and his lengthy absence, but also because he was also now an obstacle to Harue’s family’s plan to arrange her marriage. Not that Dante was going to stop the wedding, but Harue had confessed that “she was ready to turn her back on everything.” The same could be said of Dante. The film also does not dwell on it, and Dante does not himself say so, but he actually has less reason to maintain ties with the homeland. His wife is sick and eventually dies, and his family’s own pottery’s business in Pampanga faces the prospect of closure.
One could suspect that he was ready to settle permanently in Japan, but the sad twist of events highlights not just the fate of Filipino migrants but also their treatment in the hands of the Japanese. Dante and Harue’s relationship would have been a symbolic win for Filipino-Japanese relations. For Dante, it would have meant tighter integration into Japanese society. As a man, he would/could have become part of the family, inherited control of the pottery business, and thus gained a more secure footing in Japan.
Of course, this is not to deny the real-life marriages between Japanese and Filipinos in Japan or the attempts to immigrant-friendly policies by the national or prefectural governments. In many ways, though, Japan has always been a fairly homogenous society, and only until recently has it become a little more diverse, thanks to the influx of migrant workers partly due to its being an aging society. As such, the Japanese are still learning to deal with its growing immigrant population, including Filipinos, a situation that generates some ambivalence, if not tension. As Celero (2021) writes,
Again, the film does not explicitly pursue these angles, and Harue’s father could have still disowned her had she continued her relationship with Dante. But the refusal of Kintsugi to pursue a happy ending for Dante and Harue illustrates a/the limit on how the Japanese—or Japan in general—relates to foreigners, or at least Filipinos. There is some reaching out and accommodation, not least because Japan needs immigrants to address its labor shortage, but only to a point, and certainly not a full-blown integration, especially to the extent of becoming part of the Japanese family and society.
…Japan remains reluctant to open its borders and support the permanent settlement of immigrants, whose numbers account for 3% of the total population… In April 2019, the right-wing government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resolved to accept thousands of migrant workers in order to address the labour shortages in 11 industries or sectors, including nursing. This recent immigration decision, however, drew mixed reactions from the public and civil society. With Japan’s ‘revolving door’ disposition towards migrants, the government continues to face the challenge of fully integrating its foreign residents and recognising their broadening social roles. On the contrary, the general Japanese population holds fairly positive perceptions about immigration. According to the 2018 Global Attitudes Survey, for instance, the majority of Japanese respondents viewed immigrants more as contributing to job skills and the talent pool of the country (59%) than as being a social burden in terms of access to jobs and social benefits (31%).
At the same time, however, other surveys some level of negativity towards migrants in Japan. Thirty-four percent of survey respondents said that Japan does not need migrants, 32 percent admitted that migrants are a “drain on the economy,” and just over half said crime had increased in Japan because of migrants.
Kintsugi somewhat reflects these ambiguities: there is indeed an opening up, symbolized by the fact that a Japanese woman was ready to break from tradition and marry a foreigner. At the same time, there is also an exclusion, as Harue’s traditional father ultimately refuses to countenance the relationship. The film ends with the very image of tradition: Harue’s Shinto wedding, a scene filled with celebration (on the part of Harue’s and Ryo’s family) but also tinged with regret and what-ifs (Harue).
Though Harue had her own reasons to break it off with Dante (trust issues), there is still an ambivalence to tradition. Her invocation of kintsugi seems to be small consolation. Indeed, Kintsugi pays tribute to traditional Japanese culture, but it also pushes back against it. First is how the film mentions in passing that what seems to be the quintessential Japanese tradition—pottery making—actually had its origins from Korean migrants in Japan, who, it is said in the film, discovered the clay used in the Arita pottery business (Dante’s employer). Incidentally, the company also employs three Filipinos, including Dante and her housemate, Willy, a reflection of how immigrant labor has increasingly become a staple of some Japanese industries. From 2012 to 2017, for instance, the number of Filipino workers “tripled” to 43,189, up from just 17,611 in 2012.
Second, Kintsugi shows how exclusionary that traditionalism can be. Early on in the film, we learn from Harue that “some families can still be very traditional. They want a male heir to continue their family’s craft.” Dante could have been that heir. Although he must share part of the blame for his fate (he had lied after all to Harue and to his employer, not too mention his homophobia towards Willy, his friend), one wonders why the philosophy and practice of kintsugi did not, or was not applied, to Dante and Harue’s relationship. Sure, Dante lied, but couldn’t Harue (or his family for that matter) repaired their relationship? If she could fix a broken cup, why not do the same for her and Dante? After all, Harue herself says, “Repairing broken things is just like apologizing. It also restores relationships.” One wonders why Dante does not invoke kintsugi to ask for one more chance. Perhaps Harue is simply consistent with the reason she broke up with his boyfriend before Dante. “There’s no trust anymore. And it won’t work if you don’t trust each other.”
Though loving in its portrayal of kintsugi, the film also shows it to be moral standard that the Japanese themselves, including Harue, fail to live up to. It seems to be apply only to the Japanese self, not migrants. On the day of her wedding, Harue reflects that she too was broken by her experience with Dante, but that she will heal, and that her scars would eventually be beautiful. There is some semblance of redemption for her. But not for her relationship with Dante, and for Dante himself. By the end of the film, Dante is left broken like so many other migrants. Jobless in Japan, he sits on top of, and mirrors, the rock fragments encased in the concrete sidewalk. Worse, there seems to be nothing left for him in the Philippines, apart from his mother.
While the film indicts Japanese traditionalism, Kintsugi is a triumph of Filipino-Japanese collaboration: a Japanese actress starring in a Filipino film, and the Japanese government teaming up with Filipino film producers and actors. In this respect, the film’s ending belies, and runs contrary to, the material conditions of its collaborative production. This, among other things, dramatizes the achievements and limits in Philippines-Japan relations. Given the proliferation of romance movies in recent years, and those set in Japan, it is easy to judge Kintsugi as yet another take on the genre. But the film is best appreciated in the context of migrant life in Japan and Philippines-Japan relations.