‘The Happiness of the Katakuris’: Japan’s surreal take on the movie musical
The musical will always remain one of the most popular genres in cinema, because there are few experiences that bring a crowded auditorium together better than a toe-tapping extravaganza packed to the brim with earworms and catchy numbers from beginning to end.
It’s a universal form of storytelling, too, with the language barrier hardly a hindrance to enjoying a composition of the highest order. Every country has put its own spin on the tropes and trappings of the musical in its own unique way, but it was a given that when Takashi Miike dipped his toes into the waters of song and dance, the results were hardly going to be conventional.
The filmmaker is every bit as prolific as he is versatile, with Miike’s filmography proudly boasting everything from stomach-churning terrors to family-friendly romps via sword-swinging period pieces and action-packed thrillers. The Happiness of the Katakuris is definitely a musical by the loosest definition of the term, but much like the majority of its director’s work, it’s something else unto itself.
Loosely based on the South Korean film The Quiet Family, Miike utilises the same narrative backdrop of a family-run lodge that develops a habit of customers dying on the premises. However, he injects it with his own mischievously anarchic spirit, with no stylistic stone left unturned in his ongoing quest to laugh squarely in the face of normalcy.
Four generations of the Katakuri clan have one thing in common besides being related by blood: they’re all failures in their personal and professional lives. Using the father’s severance pay to purchase property near a garbage dump close to Mount Fuji in an attempt to turn over a new leaf, the White Lover’s Inn opens for business. However, when the first guest commits suicide, the clan decides the best way to avoid their enterprise going tits up early doors is to dispose of the evidence.
It’s hardly a one-time thing, though, with every single one of their guests dying under a variety of circumstances, leaving the Katakuris dangerously short of room in the garden after burying so many bodies. Oh, and there’s a man claiming to be the nephew of Queen Elizabeth II, the rumblings of a volcanic eruption, dream sequences, karaoke scenes, full-blown musical numbers Rodgers and Hammerstein would be proud of, and even Claymation.
In classic Miike fashion, the what-the-fuckery is completely off the charts, with The Happiness of the Katakuris pinballing around from family drama to farcical comedy and back again via dancing zombies, lashings of surrealism and a decidedly carefree approach to staying within its chosen lane.
It’s almost as if the auteur finally got around to watching The Sound of Music for the very first time while tripping absolute balls and thought to himself, ‘Hold my beer’. It’s a genre-bending slice of madness that defies description, something that can realistically be said about a lot of Miike’s work. And yet, the sheer determination to make it as weird as possible makes it very hard to be left anything other than transfixed.
