REVIEW
Bless You - Does Your Soul Have a Cold?

Before the year 2000, the Japanese word for depression – Utsubyo – was only heard, recognized or used within the upper echelon of Japanese medical circles. However, after a highly aggressive campaign by American pharmaceutical companies that suggested a soul could have a cold and need anti-depressants to cure it, the Japanese people have become increasingly aware of the condition of depression and its effects. Bombarded and somewhat baffled by this previously untapped plethora of knowledge, those who have been hidden away, told there was something wrong with them or abused for years because of their abnormality are now coming forward in droves. Hungry for acceptance and understanding, they are willing to pour out their stories to anyone who will listen.

And listen is exactly what Director Mike Mills (Thumbsucker) has done. Following the lives of five unique individuals, the IFC documentary release Does Your Soul Have a Cold? movingly highlights the effects the “newly minted” condition of depression has had on the masses of Japan thus far. Through invasively intimate angles, broad shots of an impassive Tokyo and busy, blurred subway images of life on hyper speed, Mills prompts his viewers to wonder if an accurate definition of depression will ever fully and truly exist.

Blending their stories together with fluidity and precision, Mills seeks to allow Mika, Kayoko, Ken, Daisuke and Taketoshi to each represent an intriguing “style”, “format” or “brand” of depression. As each person has their own method for dealing with the condition, fueled by their own preconceived notions of what the disease is all about, Mills asks sensitive questions and then patiently waits around for the extensive and varied answers.

Flashing across the screen young and beautiful, Mika doesn’t feel as if there is a reason for living. By her own admission, she doesn’t really want to die but would rather just sort of disappear. After a failed past attempt at suicide, Mika now spends her mornings stretching for what seems like hours on end before heading off to sell medical samples. Desperately wanting off the antidepressants that regulate her life, Mika struggles to make a stand against the logical and persuasive emotions that easily overpower her.

Telling stories that illuminate a bad childhood, it is clear that Kayoko, as opposed to Mika, has no willpower, strength or determination to get her emotions “under control”. Lonely and tossed about by her every fleeting feeling, her depression brings attention from her supervisor and fellow workers at her 9-5 at a T-shirt printing factory, attention that she craves and fully relishes.

A bisexual with SM tendencies, Ken seems more like a voyeur who must continually be on an emotional high rather than an individual suffering from depression. Getting his kicks from abusive strip tease performances, it is clear that the ever polite and respectful Ken just really likes to be liked. Donning hot pants and high heels, he continuously runs from his depression.

Daisuke is what many would call truly depressed. Between the utter chaos of his room, his disregard for the rules of medicine and his own sabotage of his “getting well” process, Daisuke’s depression is acute, potent and utterly debilitating. People like Daisuke don’t usually commit suicide - People like Daisuke don’t usually do much of anything.

Much like Kayoko, Taketoshi just wants to be loved. But unlike Kayoko, Taketoshi takes action daily to live a normal life. He swims, hangs out with friends, goes to self-help group meetings and takes detailed notes of the intricacies of his condition. Despite his attentiveness, it is clear he believes himself to be ultimately helpless and at the whim of the disease.

While these five fit easily into various points on the continuum of depression stored away in the American consciousness, they get lumped into one seemingly large and frighteningly new group in Japan, a group that neither society nor medical circles have a clear answer for.   

Limited in its use of music, Does Your Soul Have a Cold? is hauntingly pensive. At films end, rather than wrapping the theatre in a melody that calms and soothes, Mill leaves his audience to sit in screaming silence and to think not only about these five lives but about the effects American advertising, a new generation of pill-poppers and an entirely new disease will have on the make-up and mentality of the Japanese culture.