The movie Cutie and the Boxer is a documentary film about the story of a marriage between Ushio and Noriko, two very amazing, yet very different, Japanese artists. Ushio and Noriko Shinohara met when Noriko was very young. She had just moved to New York City, all the way from Japan. She was striving to become a successful artist, while surviving only on the money her parents gave her. Ushio was around 40 years old when he met Noriko. He was already a pretty established artist but was also struggling with an unknown, at the time, drinking problem. Ushio quickly depended on Noriko for help financially. This led to her parents cutting her off completely because they didn’t believe Ushio was a good influence on her. It didn’t take long for the two to get married and start a life together. Noriko adored Ushio just as Ushio adored her, and she believed that he would support her dream of one day becoming a successful artist.
The movie portrays both Noriko and Ushio’s life to be pretty sad and depressing, through sad music and images of their poor life style, along with Noriko’s storytelling paintings that portray Ushio to be a selfish drunk. At one point in the movie, Noriko is explaining how when she had a baby, she had to put her dream aside and work to raise her son and support her husband, the movie shows images of Noriko throughout this time, not one picture looked like they were living a good happy life. This type of portrayal in the film is raw and honest, it shows that just because someone’s work may be successful and famous, does not necessarily mean they are successful and famous, themselves.
This film really shows what the artists lives are like behind “closed doors”. Although Noriko does ultimately express her emotions through her comic paintings with captions, Ushio does just the opposite. Ushio’s work is very unique, some of the work he does involves painting with boxing gloves. I found this to be quite impressive, due to the fact that at the start of the film they show Ushio celebrating his 80th birthday. Right after that scene he heads over to his studio, dips his boxing gloves in paint and immediately begins to forcefully punch his backdrop to create another one of his famous pieces. An art buyer then comes to look at some of his work, she expresses that she is interested in buying a piece of work with historical significance. Noriko insists on selling this one piece that Ushio had painted at a college university. She claimed that the art work definitely held some historical value to it since it had been one of his very first paintings to draw lots of attention.
Another fascinating aspect about Ushio’s work is that he liked to combine modern day New York City culture with Japanese culture through his art. In the movie there’s a scene where Ushio is walking down the streets of New York just collecting scraps of cardboard and such from the sidewalk. He then takes his findings home and uses them to create these colorful sculptures combining his Japanese culture with the findings of New York City’s scraps to create these unusual, yet fascinating, objects. One of Ushio’s most famous pieces of work is a painting called “Oiran”. Oiran originates from Japan and means woman of pleasure, or prostitute, but they were also known to be celebrities. This painting drew lots of attention to Ushio because of the culture of Oiran. It wasn’t just a typical realistic painting of one of those women. The woman in the painting has a blank white face and the rest of the picture is very colorful with geometric shapes. The fact that Ushio took somewhat serious things, or unusual things, and combined them with more modern pieces is really what grabbed many people’s attention.
A final moment in the movie is when Noriko and Ushio end up having an art exhibit together, they are both seen smiling and soaking in the moment as many people surround their art work in awe. This movie was not only real but it was very raw with all sorts of emotions. It was relatable for many people while also giving off a sense of hope, sending a message to the viewers to not give up on what you love. Even at such elderly ages, Noriko and Ushio still follow their passion by trying to come up with new pieces of art every day. From showing the extreme ups and downs of their relationship, to deep inside the meanings of their artworks, this film gives off a great sense of determination and strength from Ushio and especially Noriko. The ending scene showing them both smiling while play battling with their paint covered boxing gloves was a good way to end a heartfelt story of two very different artists.
