The weight of tradition threatens to crush a once-great family in ¡°The Nikaidos¡¯ Fall,¡± a contemporary drama about people with an unhealthy fixation on the past. Iranian director Ida Panahandeh¡¯s film starts in a cemetery and never really leaves the realm of the dead. Its characters are so haunted by a sense of obligation to their forebears, they¡¯re incapable of living for themselves.
Tatsuya Nikaido (Masaya Kato) is the patriarch of the titular clan, and a man whose time passed a few centuries ago. He looks like he¡¯d be happier in a kimono than the suits and overalls he¡¯s required to wear for work at the family seed business, strutting through each scene with the bearing of a kabuki actor who¡¯s just removed his makeup.
In the elegant country home that he shares with his ailing mother, Haru (Kazuko Shirakawa), and daughter, Yuko (Shizuka Ishibashi), the photos of departed relatives maintain a stern watch over the living. As Yuko tells a visitor while showing off the family annals: ¡°All the dead people in this book are waiting for my Dad to do something.¡±
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