Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Cutie and the Boxer,” filmmaker Zachary Heinzerling’s portrait of married artists Noriko and Ushio Shinohara, largely refrains from passing judgment on the quality of the work produced by the two New York City residents. Instead, the documentarian takes advantage of his proximity and access to navigate a messy, psychologically complex relationship fraught with the full range of emotions associated with so many long-term partnerships. The backstory, filled in with efficiency and economy, begins in 1972, when the wide-eyed, teenage Noriko arrived in America from Japan and fell for the passionate and more established Ushio, a man more than two decades her senior.

Noriko’s own artistic ambitions were quickly sidelined by Ushio’s alcoholism and the birth of son Alex. The young woman traded her brushes for a seemingly thankless role as Ushio’s assistant, servant, maid, cook, and caregiver. But Heinzerling knows that Noriko is the glue that holds the dysfunctional team together, and invites the viewer to experience much of the unfolding narrative through the eyes of this remarkable, indefatigable woman. Now, forty years into their partnership, Noriko’s art begins to attract attention and Ushio’s jealousy bubbles to the surface. Heinzerling sorts out and makes clear the complicated, love-hate interconnectedness that inextricably links Ushio to Noriko.

At least five years in the making, Heinzerling’s movie covers the familiar tale of an against-the-odds struggle to pursue one’s avocation in the face of sobering financial challenges. Outside of the art world, and arguably within it, self-described Neo-Dadaist Ushio Shinohara is not widely recognized and for many decades has toiled on the fringes and in the shadows of other contemporaries who have managed to find more financial success and critical adulation. Shinohara’s signatures as documented by Heinzerling focus on two overarching motifs: massive, abstract, action paintings resulting from the splatter of Ushio’s boxing gloves and a series of motorcycle sculptures crafted out of discarded and found objects.

Heinzerling incorporates some beautiful vintage film footage of the Shinohara family that brings a dimension of intimate time-travel to the movie. The director also adds animation of Noriko’s autobiographical “Cutie and Bullie” illustrations, alluring, inky panels in which pigtail-braided and frequently naked alter ego Cutie gets the better of the insensitive, domineering Bullie. Cutie’s story, accompanied by short phrases often rendered in Noriko’s fractured English, opens a window into Noriko’s psyche that captures her sadness and anger along with an empathetic, clear-eyed tolerance of her husband. One caption reads, “Cutie understood how much Bullie wanted to be loved.”

The pastel-hued, slow motion fisticuffs, underscored by Yasuaki Shimizu & Saxophonette’s version of Bach’s Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1, that play over the end credits of “Cutie and the Boxer” shape the perfect metaphor symbolizing Noriko and Ushio’s partnership, a bittersweet pairing resistant to the notion of happily ever after. In an interview with Emma Carmichael, Noriko says, “I don’t believe in the happy ending. You know, everybody wants to, say, at the end of their life, to maybe die satisfied, die quietly, or die comfortably – surrounded by many friends or family. But my hero is Caravaggio, and he died young, struggling, but continuing with his art. So I want to die with my brush in my hand, and to die with art.” After seeing “Cutie and the Boxer,” it is difficult to imagine Noriko Shinohara doing anything but that.