The film Cutie and the Boxer is a heartwarming story about an elderly Japanese couple in New York City. The husband is an artist who tries to keep him and his wife afloat by selling his work at art shows. During the 1960’s in Japan Ushio’s work was very popular, he decided to move to New York and buy a studio there. However, because of his different Japanese sculpture art style; he has trouble selling his work and Americans weren’t interested in it. His wife, Noriko works as his assistant and stands by him through their struggles; she is also an artist and draws about her journey to the U.S. and illustrates the story of how she met Ushio. The movie portrays their everyday life, which is similar to an average elderly couple that is struggling to get by. The director’s idea of telling stories through Noriko’s comic style artwork shows how she is also a talented artist and it also does a good job of giving a background of their lives after moving to New York City. Noriko’s comics are illustrations about how the couple met and the struggles that they have been through. The names of the characters she draws are Cutie (herself) and the boxer (Ushio) The marriage of Ushio and Noriko is the main subject of the documentary and we get a look at their complex relationship.
The styles of the two artists are completely different, Ushio uses a technique called action painting where he puts paint on his boxing gloves and punches the canvas which splatters paint onto the walls and forms an abstract painting. Ushio also made sculptures out of cardboard that he would find outside on the street in front of his SoHo studio. Noriko had a completely different style and sketched comics in a notebook, these comics sold well and Ushio would often ask her for money early on in their relationship. The couple in their early years remind me of other artists such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera because of the complex relationship they had and the struggles that they had to go through. Frida and Noriko both fell in love with their husbands even though they were treated unfairly, the two artists didn’t know any better and were focused on finding a husband. Frida and Noriko both told their stories through their artwork and sketched about their life problems. They both used their artwork to cope with their stress from their lives. The age difference is also similar, Noriko was 19 when she met Ushio whom was 41, and when Frida met Diego, she was 22 and he was 42.
The couple lives in poverty and they struggle to pay their rent monthly, in one scene we see Ushio travel to Japan to sell his work there, he stuffs his action style painting in his suitcase and returns to America with $3,500 in cash. Ushio put Noriko through a lot during their marriage, he made her put her work on hold to assist him with his own work and to raise their child and he also struggled with alcoholism. Their focus solely on art and the alcohol consumption of Ushio is the reason why their son Alex is also struggling with alcoholism. Noriko put her artwork aside to try to do what was best for her family and she didn’t resume her artwork until shortly before the movie started. The director Zachary Heinzerling did a great job of expressing the emotions Noriko and how she felt about the struggles they went through. In one scene Noriko says “We are like two flowers in one pot” meaning that they don’t get enough nutrients at certain times. When one of them is happy then the other is sad and it shows how much of a struggle that their relationship is.
Heinzerling does a good job of capturing the struggles throughout their years, which shows the sacrifices that each of them have to give up pursuing their dreams. He uses Noriko’s paintings to show these struggles and he also explains how Ushio was once a top artist in Japan but is struggling to get by in America. Noriko’s dream was to sell art in the U.S and start a family with someone, while Ushio’s dream was to be a successful artist in the U.S and sell his different style of work. Although their plans didn’t work out, they still had their fame and are thought of as a talented couple in modern day art. They may have not been the most popular and wealthy couple, but their stories and interesting art styles made them popular in modern art today.
