“3D jobs: dirty, dangerous and devalued”: this is how Katsuya Tomita
defines the precarious jobs of the workers in Saudade. The film-maker
knows all about it: he was a truck driver while he made his first two
films, and a builder when he directed Saudade, partly shot on his own
working site. Through the stories of several workers sent by agencies
on a “rotten” site, this fiction film explores a fragmented national
identity, with a very stimulating freedom. Takeru, whose parents
ruined themselves with pachinko gambling, sings about his rebellion
with a hip-hop group which soon shares venues with Japanese-
Brazilian capoeira dancers. Seiji has known nothing but building
sites, but now feels “at home” at last when he meets a Thai woman:
Hosaka is back after many years in Thailand… Relationships are tense
between the Japanese and the migrants, a situation clearly exposed
by each of their stories. Some youth indulge in nationalism, others
in drug addiction – all are the results of a social disaster. “Saudade,
writes Philipe Azoury in Libération, is a site where identity is under
construction, where those who dig their own grave meet those who
lose themselves looking for their own foundations.” CG