Dolls — Module 02 questions and scene summaries

Questions for this day (pre-Summer 2013)

1. This segment introduces our other two story lines. In the stories of Sawako and Ryoko (the girlfriend of the mafia boss) one can say that their mental imbalance is a result of the shock they receive when jilted by their lovers. However, in the third story line this is not the case, and yet the J-pop star Haruna, too, seems mentally off-balance due to a shock. What is the common denominator of these three women?

2. How does the fan of the J-pop star Haruna differ from Matsumoto and the mafia boss Hiro?

3. How would you define "binding" in these three story lines so far?

Scenes 8-13 summaries for Dolls

DVD Scene 8 (begins at 0:36;34)

In an empty apartment; Matsumoto's parents are shutting down the house where they lived together. when the movers leave, the mother cries. The father says that it was his choice.

Shot of a red cord again; Matsumoto has tied her to it show she won't keep disappearing but she keeps trying to walk.

A cupid on the ground.

They begin to walk, shuffle, away from the car, connected with the red cord between them.

They are walking under the cherry blossoms. This is the scene that we saw at the beginning of the movie (scene 2).

A (yakuza -- mafia) boss, Hiro, at his desk, reading a newspaper. A new bodyguard is introduced.

Outside his gate, two boys/men are being greeted by the boss. One is in a wheelchair another seems hopeless unintelligent. He gives money to the one in the wheelchair and explains to the new bodyguard that the boy is the son of a "brother".

This odd couple walks past the Matsumoto-Sawako couple. The boy in the wheelchair calls them strange.

DVD Scene 9 (begins at 0:41;08)

The boss, back at his beautiful estate, is sitting on the veranda drinking tea, talking with his new bodyguard. He asks him why he became a yakuza; he says he was always fighting. The boss says that is stupid, he should use his head for something. The boss begins to remember it seems.

He is walking with a lady friend and walks past a bodyguard of a "brother". He looks a bit suspiciously at him. The bodyguard does give a signal by lighting a cigarette. Hiro sends his girlfriend up the elevator first, then runs up the stairs. The bodyguard hears shots and prepares the car for escape.

Actually, the assassins have been tricked by Hiro and we see that they lie dead on the floor; the girlfriend is also dead.

Hiro goes to the car when the bodyguard is, gun out, and, when the camera returns to the scene of the dead bodies around the elevator, we hear shots.

Another brief scene showing a boss similar to him dead in a rainy street, having been shot in the forehead.

Back to him remembering.

Now a flashback that shows that dead boss just before he is killed, and the command by Hiro to kill him.

Back to him on the veranda. "We were good 'brothers', too." Looks thoughtful, perhaps regretful.

Then a doctor comes; he is checked, and later reports that he can't tell how sick he might be but maybe he doesn't have long to live. He asked his bodyguard if he has a girlfriend. He says not anymore, that she was "in the way." He says he was the same.

Flashback to a young Ryoko who is making his lunchbox for him. They seem to eat together everyday; perhaps they both work at the same factory.

Back to the veranda: the boss says he will go to Saitama because it is Saturday.

DVD Scene 10 (begins at 0:48;18)

Back to the flashback. A young Hiro is explaining that they can no longer meet; that he is quitting his job and will come back for her when he becomes rich enough to marry. He leaves her with the lunchbox on her lap. Then she calls out that she will make a lunchbox every Saturday and wait for him.

Back to Hiro in the taxi, going to Saitama. They arrive at the park. He begins the long walk to a particular bench, remembering the path as it was when he left his girlfriend a long time ago. He sees Ryoko waiting at the bench. Two young men explain that she comes there every Saturday with two lunch boxes. From his expression it seems he has not seen her before. Two women want to sit at the bench but Ryoko asks them to sit elsewhere because she expects her girlfriend to come. Hiro seems to understand who this is.

DVD Scene 11 (begins at 0:55;35)

Matsumoto and Sawako are sitting by the bay. Then we see the two young men who had gone to the boss's house fishing. But they had used a tangerine slice as bait. They leave.

Against an orange sky, our couple walk past these two.

It is now night. Matsumoto and Sawako are sleeping under a train bridge. Sawako has a dream where she is gang raped by three men wearing festival robes and tengu masks. They drag her to the place where they will rape her by the red rope. She wakes up with Matsumoto comforting her.

A quick shot of a fish "dressed" in a kimono.

The couple are walking through a park, summertime. She sees the mask she saw during her dream (therefore she is fantasizing) and then she seems a man naked except for red underwear and the mask staring at her. In fear she hurries away.

In a flashback, she and Matsumoto are at a beach. She tricks him by tying his leg to a surfboard cord, waking him up and telling him that her hat has blown away. When he tries to go get it he falls down. They laugh.

They are at a precipitous cliff, looking down into a threatening ocean. A hat similar to the one in the flashback, blows past them, over the edge and down into the waves.

DVD Scene 12 (begins at 1:03;52)

The now blind Nukui comes to the beach to see a woman with a patch over her eye (Yamaguchi Haruna, a pop singer, we will later learn). He wants to see her but her assistant usually keeps fans away. She is making an exception because he is blind.

On the beach, Matsumoto and Sawako walk past Nukui and the assistant. This walking past repeats itself from a slightly different camera angle. Matsumoto and Sawako walk past Yamaguchi. The camera follows them then pans back to Yamaguchi, sitting alone.

Flashback to a healthy Yamaguchi Haruna, singing her popular single, a catchy and very repetitive melody (want to see the music video?), in a studio in front of cameras (not fans, just her).

Girls become so pretty when they are in love
That's what they say
Is it really true?
I hope it is, I do!
You can be shy
You can be awkward
But when you're in love,
A sparkle lights your eyes!
Eyes meet, the fire ignites
Love is taking off.
A look here, a look there
Like a beam flashing!
Ma-me-mi-mu-me-mo
Ma-me-mi-mu-me-mo
Ma-me-mi-mu, magical beam!
Ma-me-mi-mu-me-mo
Ma-me-mi-mu-me-mo
Ma-me-mi-mu, magical beam!
Eyes meet, the fire ignites
Love is taking off.
A look here, a look there
Like a beam flashing!
Ma-me-mi-mu-me-mo
Ma-me-mi-mu-me-mo
Ma-me-mi-mu, magical beam!
Ma-me-mi-mu-me-mo
Ma-me-mi-mu-me-mo
Ma-me-mi-mu, magical beam!

A few desultory men, her fans, are waiting outside. She leaves the studio and gets into a car. Her fans wave. Nukui runs up, late to meet her. He looks at another fan in a red sweater (Aoki).

In the car, a man and a woman discuss the fans while Yamaguchi, looking very tired, listens.

A shot of a pin with Yamaguchi's picture on it. It is Nukui at work, wearing the uniform of a traffic safety worker at a construction site. He seems not to do his job with any spirit, distracted. He reads the new scrolling across an electronic billboard on a nearby building. "Stocks drop again" Remember how he just missed a chance to wave at Yamaguchi, he stops working, just stands there. His boss yells at him and tells him not to wear groupie pins on his uniform. In his mind he hears the song tune and sees Yamaguchi cutely dancing. She waves to the (nonexistent) audience.

In Nukui's apartment. It is filled with fan material about Yamaguchi. Huge posters, etc. He is dancing enthusiastically but not well to her music which he hears through headphones.

DVD Scene 13 (begins at 1:10;31)

Ryoko has returned from her fruitless Saturday afternoon wait and gives the extra lunchbox to the man who lives next to her in the low class apartment complex.

Men have lined up to get Yamaguchi's signature at a book signing of her new photo essay collection "Tayutau" ["Bobbing" as in "bobbing up and down on waves"]

Nukui has already gotten a signature and is now looking at the pictures. Aoki is just getting her signature; he has flowers to give her. She shakes his hand and Nukui looks a bit jealously at Aoki.

Back in his apartment, Nukui remembers the kind words Yamaguchi has for Aoki.

Back outside the studio he and Aoki exchange glances.

Back at his nighttime job as a traffic director he is not concentrating.

The next shot is of a silver car (Yamaguchi's car was silver) with blood on the side of the car and the pavement and a woman's sandal.

A shot of Yamaguchi, as she is seen on the badge of her that Nukui wears.

Return to the shot of the shoe.

Police action at the crash site of the silver Mercedes. An ambulance is there, too. The door of the Mercedes that is open would be the door that Yamaguchi uses. (She has a chauffeur so she sits back seat, to the left.)

Nukui is reading the news off the building again. "Two young girls drowned" "Pop start Yamaguchi was involved in a car accident" At that he runs from his job.

In the lobby of the hospital, in front of a large crowd of reporters, Yamaguchi's agent says that the accident was last night at about 11:20 and was caused by the car swerving to miss another car. Many are outside, wondering what has happened Nukui arrives, stand next to Aoki.

Back in his apartment, he is trying to learn her song on the harmonica. He plays poorly.

He stands outside the hospital with flowers in hand.

A weekly magazine says that her chances of recovery do not look good and it might mean early retirement.

He is standing outside her house; he talks with her mother. She will not allow him to see her. He gives the mother a letter and walks away, with the flowers still. He passes Aoki who carries the same type of umbrella and a bouquet of flowers, too.

Aoki is walking down a wet road by himself, still with the flowers. In his mind he sees Yamaguchi dancing; it is a soundless scene of her singing. He recalls how he got her signature.