You ever watch a movie that just sits in your stomach like a heavy stone for days? That’s Nobody Knows. Honestly, I first saw this Japanese film years ago, and I still can’t shake certain scenes. It’s one of those rare pieces of cinema that manages to be incredibly beautiful and absolutely devastating at the exact same time.
Directed by the legendary Hirokazu Kore-eda, the 2004 film Nobody Knows (or Dare mo Shiranai) tells a story that sounds like a nightmare. Four siblings, all with different fathers, are left alone in a cramped Tokyo apartment after their mother decides she’s "in love" and just... leaves. No school, no outside contact, and eventually, no money.
But here’s the kicker: it’s based on a true story.
The Tragic Reality of the Sugamo Child Abandonment Case
While the movie feels like a slow-burn poem, the real-life inspiration—the 1988 Sugamo child abandonment case—was far more gruesome. In the film, Kore-eda softens some of the edges to focus on the children’s inner lives, but the facts of the actual case are chilling.
A mother abandoned her five children (the film features four) for nine months. The eldest son, only 14 at the time, was left to care for his younger sisters. When authorities finally entered the apartment after a tip-off from the landlord, they found three severely malnourished children and the remains of two others. One infant had died shortly after birth years prior, and the youngest girl had been beaten to death by friends of the eldest son before being buried in a forest.
Kore-eda took this horrific headline and spent 15 years sitting on the script. He didn't want to make a "true crime" thriller or a finger-wagging PSA about social services. Instead, he wanted to see the world through the kids' eyes.
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Why the Nobody Knows Japanese Movie Works So Well
Most directors would have turned this into a melodrama with swelling violins and lots of screaming. Not Kore-eda. He’s a master of the "mundane."
The film tracks a full year. You see the seasons change through the balcony window. You watch the apartment transform from a tidy home into a cluttered, trash-filled cage. The water gets cut off. The electricity dies. The kids start eating cup noodles dry because they can't boil water.
The Performance That Shocked Cannes
The heart of the movie is Yuya Yagira, who played the eldest brother, Akira. He was only 14 when the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. He actually beat out Tony Leung and Tom Hanks to win the Best Actor award—making him the youngest winner in the festival's history.
What’s wild is that he wasn’t even a professional actor. Kore-eda didn't give the kids a script. He just told them what was happening in each scene and let them react. Yagira's eyes in this movie? They’re haunting. You watch his childhood vanish in real-time as he realizes his mother isn't coming back by Christmas. Or ever.
The Use of Color and Objects
There’s this weird, fairytale-like quality to the cinematography. Even as things get grim, there are these pops of bright red—a suitcase, a box of Apollo Choco candies, a bottle of nail polish.
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The red suitcase is particularly gut-wrenching. At the start of the film, it's used to smuggle the younger siblings into the apartment so the landlord won't find out there are four kids living there. By the end, that same suitcase serves a much darker, much more final purpose.
Breaking Down the Social Commentary
Japanese society often prides itself on wa (harmony) and "not bothering others." But Nobody Knows exposes the dark side of that. The neighbors hear the kids. The convenience store clerks know something is wrong. The landlord suspects the truth.
But nobody intervenes.
Akira himself refuses to call for help because he’s terrified the siblings will be split up by social services. It’s a classic Catch-22. To stay together, they have to starve in silence. To be "saved," they have to lose each other.
How to Watch and What to Expect
If you’re planning to dive into this, brace yourself. It’s 141 minutes long. It moves slowly. It’s not a movie where "things happen" in the traditional sense; it’s a movie where life unravels.
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You can usually find it streaming on platforms like Criterion Channel or available for rent on Amazon.
Pro-tip: Don't watch this if you're already feeling down. It’s a masterpiece, but it’s a heavy lift emotionally.
Key Takeaways for Film Lovers
- Watch the details: Notice how the laundry piles up or how the children's fingernails get dirtier as the months pass. It’s a masterclass in visual storytelling.
- Research the director: If you like this, check out Kore-eda’s other work like Shoplifters. He’s obsessed with the idea of "chosen family" versus "biological family."
- Acknowledge the silence: The movie is famous for its lack of a traditional score. The silence of the apartment is a character in itself.
If you really want to understand modern Japanese cinema, you have to watch this. It isn't just a sad story; it's a look at the cracks in a "perfect" society that we often choose to ignore.
Take a look at the 2018 film Shoplifters next if you want to see how Kore-eda’s perspective on family evolved over the two decades following this release. It makes for a perfect, if somber, double feature.