The Mourning Forest (2007) User Reviews

Hauntingly beautiful

[paulmartin-2 · 8/10 · 29 July 2007]

I found The Mourning Forest a poetic and hauntingly beautiful meditation on death, old age, sadness and letting go. I haven't actively sought films that fit into the 'contemplative cinema' category at MIFF, but this is one of several I've seen so far.

The film is effectively a two-hander: Shigeki, an elderly and energetic resident of a retirement home, and Machiko, a young and inexperienced caregiver. The film focuses on their interactions and what happens when Machiko takes Shigeki for a drive on his birthday. While other characters assume fleeting roles, there is a recurring theme of death and mourning, a point that is reinforced by both the title and on-screen comments at film's end. While this may sound morbid, it is anything but.

The cinematography is stunning, capturing the beauty of wind-swept fields, overhead shots of finely-trimmed symmetrical arrays of hedges, and mountain forest scenery. There are long takes where nothing of much significance seems to transpire and yet the film remains completely engaging. The human drama is depicted as inexplicably linked to nature, a poetic theme that Japanese cinema sometimes conveys so effectively.

One slight negative: there was a little bit of unnecessary camera shake that distracted slightly. I saw The Mourning Forest when it screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

A remarkable film that will reward a patient viewer

[JuguAbraham · 8/10 · 11 January 2008]

There are directors who write their own original stories/scripts and directors who bring to the screen works of novelists, playwrights, and even biographers and historians. The directors who develop their own scripts are not just good filmmakers but arguably potential novelists or playwrights.

One such formidable director is Japan's Naomi Kawase. Her films win awards at prestigious film festivals following which the director churns out well received novels in Japanese based on her original film-scripts. Today, like Kawase, there are exciting filmmakers such as Mexico's Carlos Reygadas and Spain's Alejandro Amenabar (The others) and Pedro Almodovar (Talk to her) who need to be appreciated as a breed apart from the regular directors who prefer to ride on the shoulders of other worthies.

Kawase's Mourning Forest, won the Grand Prize at the 2007 Cannes film festival. Many Western critics missed out on the loaded Asian/Japanese cultural subtexts in this remarkable film and even expressed surprise that it won the honor. After viewing the film at the recent 12th International Film Festival of Kerala, I applaud the Cannes jury's verdict.

Mourning Forest (Mogari no mori) is a film that centers around a 70-year-old man with senile dementia (Alzheimer's disease?) living in an old age home in Japan—somewhat similar to Sarah Polley's Canadian film Away from Home. However, the two films approach the problem from totally different perspectives—underlining the cultural divide between Western and Eastern sensibilities. In both films, young people admire the values of the older generation. Both films are indirectly family films—underlining undying love for spouses. That's where the similarities end.

Mourning Forest is a sensitive film tracing a senile old man's quixotic pilgrimage to his wife's grave in a forest interlocking a mystical relationship with nature. An old man with depleting memory is cared for by a young woman Machiko, a new nursing recruit, at the retirement/old age home. But her name, which has similar syllables to the name of his wife Mako, who died 33 years before, triggers a passion in him to visit her grave in a forest.

On the 33rd anniversary, according to Japanese Buddhist beliefs, the departed must travel to the land of Buddha—somewhat like the Roman Catholic Christian belief of the dead reaching heaven /hell after a stay in purgatory. The time has come for the couple to part forever unless he bids farewell soon before the anniversary.

Mourning Forest can be divided into two parts.

The first part introduces the viewer to the two main characters--the nurse and the nursed. Both have suffered personal loss and are grieving—the nurse has lost a child for which her husband holds her responsible; the nursed has lost his wife and evidently never remarried and keeps writing letters to his dead wife that must be "delivered." The nurse dominates the first part. We view the two figures chasing each other between rows of tea bushes, their heads clearly visible over the verdant green landscape. There is warmth of the sun. There is an allusion to life.

The second part inverses the situation. The nursed dominates the nurse. The nursed tricks the smart young woman as he trudges to his wife's grave. Whether the spot is really her grave or not is of little consequence—the act of undertaking the pilgrimage is of consequence as he has to deliver his letters to his wife before 33 years of her death are completed. The forest covers the human figures. There is cold, darkness and mystical overflowing streams that threaten hypothermia. There are definite allusions to death and regeneration. In an interview to a news agency, Kawase said "After the two enter the forest, the forest becomes the force that supports them. It watches over the two of them, sometimes gently, sometimes more strictly." The films title roughly translates to "Forest of Mogari" and at the end of the film the director states the meaning of the term "mogari." Mogari means "the time or act of mourning." Unlike "Away from Her", "Mourning forest" is a film on understanding the richer complexities of life and death. "Running water never returns to its source," says the old man Shigeki to his nurse, words of solace for a young woman to look afresh at her marriage after losing a child. "If sad things happen, you shouldn't be sad about them or fight them, but vow to make the world a better place for children still to be born. That's my message," Kawase told the Reuters news agency At the Cannes festival, director Kawase said she made Mourning Forest because "her grandmother was becoming slightly senile, and today such people are looked down upon somewhat, and pitied, forgetting that it could happen to us someday." Kawase said she hoped viewers would learn kindness and a new way of handling difficulties -- which she said could help people around the world overcome religious and cultural differences. The nurse strips off her clothes to provide warmth to her ward and protect him from hypothermia—an action that would seem unusual to Western sensibilities. There is no sex here; mere practical help in time of need. There are streams that suddenly flood as if they have a life of their own and emerge as a silent character in the film.

There is one Japanese film that is somewhat similar in spirit and content—the 1983 Cannes Golden Palm winner Shohei Imamura's "Ballad of Narayama", where an active and useful old woman is forced to make a last trip up a mountain to fulfill local traditions and her consequent interactions with younger generations in the village. While Imamura used a famous novel to build a film classic, young Kawase has made a rich film using her own story. Kawase is treading in the footsteps of directors Terrence Mallick, Reygadas and Tarkovsky when the forest itself is transformed into a metaphor of memories and traditions, becoming a source of eternal strength. Kawase represents the finest in contemporary Japanese cinema blending nature and tradition in storytelling.

The Mourning Forest

[MartinTeller · 8/10 · 30 December 2011]

Machiko is a caregiver at a nursing home, Shigeki is one of the residents. Machiko is grieving the (apparently recent, though it's unclear) death of her young son, while Shigeki still mourns the loss of his wife, 33 years earlier. Their relationship to each other and to their grief during an excursion when they get lost in the woods. Their bond is complicated by Shigeki's dementia, whose often childlike behavior surely resonates with Machiko. It's an interesting, contemplative and spiritual exploration of grief with some lovely moments. Without spoiling anything, a charming early scene of Shigeki at the piano takes on a heartbreaking twist. Later, as Machiko desperately tries to control his reckless quest through the forest, we get hints of how she lost her child and the unresolved feelings she has.

Although there are gorgeous scenes (the two playing amidst rows of geometrically carved hedges, for example) the hand-held cinematography isn't doing the film any favors. It may have been more appropriate in the latter half, as their journey takes them deeper into the wild. But the shaky camera-work throughout the entire movie adds nothing. Maybe it just comes naturally to Naomi Kawase, whose work is primarily in documentaries (although she's no stranger to drama).

I don't know if this is an accurate representation of a Japanese senior facility, or an idealized one. I know that respect for elders is more ingrained in their culture. The home certainly appears to be a great deal more comfortable, dignified and serene than what we have. Perhaps it's a very expensive one, though we get no hints that Shigeki is particularly wealthy.

I thought it could have explored its themes a bit deeper, and there are the aforementioned camera issues, but overall I liked the film a great deal. It ends on a strikingly beautiful note. I'd like to see more by Kawase.

Healing as time runs on

[shu-fen · 28 September 2007]

The attraction of indie to me is the feeling of "living" and quietness, the subtle human sentiments and emotions reeked from the ordinary stories in normal daily living. Mega-multi-million productions are stunning in many ways but they are too "drama", not living. We need indie as antidote.

Since the 1990s, the world movie industry doesn't seem to produce many female directors and how happy we have Kawase, whose works mostly shot with Nara as backdrop. In the peaceful quietness, she is able to capture the meticulous subtlety of human touch and warmth.

Young Machiko and old Shigeki are both bereaved with great sadness. One day they have an outing in the countryside and bad weather suddenly comes. Their journey is journey of healing as Shigeki is looking for the burial location of his wife Mako who passed away 33 years old. He wants to return to her as a means to cease his mourning. To me, the most touching episode is when they wade through the small brook which is suddenly flooded by rain water. The long-silent Shigeki, just like the abrupt influx rain-water, suddenly tells Machiko that the running water will not return to its source. It is a condolence and advice to this young woman whose baby has died: let bygones be bygones, people died, they died without any return. The speedy running brook and her fast running tears are important symbols of healing: they wash away her pain.

The natural beauty of Nara is exhibited superbly with the actors' natural performance. By the way, it is the very first appearance of the 61-year-old amateur Shigeki Uda. Naomi Kawase just got to know him for very short time somewhere at her hometown while she was preparing for the shooting.

Real feeling of life and healing

[shi612 · 7/10 · 21 September 2007]

Saying honestly, when the movie ended, I felt tricked. As the two people stray off into the woods, I felt anxious on how they are rescued; felt anxious with Machiko, who without thinking follows Shigeki, an old man with dementia; and I thought 'Hey when you get lost in mountains, you should even go up to the summit…'. But actually the director is indifferent on such thrills. She expected the audiences to focus on the imagined scenery of the dementia patient and the care giver. That was why I felt tricked.

Though not explained clearly, the reason why Machiko came to the care house, which is a renovated old farmer's house in mountainous village, might be a death of her son. Her husband blames her that if she did not loose her clutch of her son the son would have not died.

One day when they had calligraphic exercise, Machiko wrote her name. Accidentally this made Shigeki recall his wife's name Mako. Mako died 33 years ago. Since then Shigeki lived in memory of Mako for very long years.

Since then, mental connection between Machiko and Shigeki gradually grows.

One day, Machiko takes Shigeki to visit Mako's tomb by car, but the car runs off on the way. It is so remote that mobile phone does not work to call for help. But from the place, Shigeki walks into the woods heading 'Mako's tomb', and Machiko has no idea but to follow him. Since then many things happen. At night, Shigeki feels chilly due to fatigue and coldness; Mako warms him naked. The next morning, Shigeki is going across dangerous river; Mako imagines it suddenly floods, and cries and cries until Shigeki comes back. This recalled me 'Sanzu no kawa', an imaginary river that separates the world of quick and the dead. Finally, Shigeki arrives at the destination; he pulls out notebooks he wrote for 33 years, perhaps filled by the memories of Mako; and he digs a hole by hand; then he peacefully sleeps in it. Besides him, Machiko feels healed from all of her past troubles.

The motif in the movie is heavy: care-giving, death of child, death of wife, and burial. As my mother is in Alzheimer disease, I had strong empathy on Shigeki. I think many of the audiences have these kinds of experiences. The message from the movie is, as I received, to have real feeling of life and healing, beyond getting old and death. This attempt is, however, not very successful, because, as I wrote in the beginning, the audiences may feel tricked at the end.

Mogari no mori

[film_riot · 7/10 · 25 October 2007]

It's all about grief here and finding back to joy in your life. Our main characters Machiko and Shigeki share something: They both lost someone they loved. "Am I still alive?" is one of the questions Shigeki asks at the beginning. Their relationship, or better, their friendship is going to give the answer to Shigeki's question. The Japanese director Kawese Naomi repeatedly uses long shots of trees or rice fields moved by wind. Maybe this observation of the nature should remind the viewer that this is how life is. Everybody will lose somebody in a lifetime, but nature carries on and so do we. Kawese doesn't use a plot as a drive for his movie, he uses a mixed atmosphere between sadness and joy, between loving and hating. Very important in "Mogari no mori" is also the sound track, that is dominated by sounds directly from nature. I had an exhausting day when watching the film, and it was hard for me to get lost in these pictures. I am interested how it works on a second viewing.

beautiful and profound portrait of grief and redemption

[mogari · 9/10 · 2 February 2009]

The story is deceptively simple, but the psychological depth of the characters and the deep symbolism captured in the everyday scenes of rural Japan are astounding. This movie never gives you too much, never lets you take anything for granted, never lets you have a clear resolution. Some of the symbols, I admit, may not be as resonant with non-Japanese audiences, and lack the emotional weight that they'd give someone familiar with Japan. The subtle changing of the foliage from early to late summer, the association of summer with the return of spirits, the idea of "mogari" as an ancient mortuary ritual of "temporary burial" that implies a return from beyond-- all of this is set far in the background of the central story of two grieving people, who, despite so many other differences between them (old/young, caregiver/cared for) can find some sort of healing connection with each other. Perhaps this is why some think it is boring. They're following the movement of individual characters rather than the whole movement of the story. The story moves from the close-shot, narrow confines of life in the old folks home, to the field (cultivated nature) in the chasing scene, to the forest (wild nature). Along the way, the psychological strain of grief becomes gradually more wild, more natural, and more capable of finding meaning, however incomprehensible. Watching "mogari" requires an eye for these subtle changes, which the actors portray compellingly, (almost as if it was a documentary), as well as a deep willingness to empathize with the characters. If you can do this, the movie will take you on an emotional roller-coaster throughout. Perhaps that's just part of the nature of grief.

A meditation on grief

[wickedmikehampton · 6/10 · 15 December 2020]

Director Naomi Kawase's 'The Mourning Forest' was different in style to her heart-warming 'Sweet Bean'.

This grief drama is 13 years older and evidently on a smaller budget.

I can't imagine anyone that I used to know appreciating it, but I found its slow pace meditative. The wind gentled the trees and the brook burbled. It took 7 minutes before someone spoke, and that was when some old people went for a slow walk to pick vegetables.

Arigato, Naomi Kawase.

[rogergeorge · 10/10 · 24 August 2020]

See-exsa (spelled Shigeko) is a gray, elderly, quiet widow, living out his years in a retirement home shared with a number of elders and their staff in Japan. We're unsure as to his mental wellbeing - is he well? Does he have dementia? Machiko, a beautiful young woman in her 20s with long black hair, huge dark eyes and a playful innocence, is Shigeko's helper. The head of the home is named Wakako - also young and beautiful but with depth, emotion, humour. She might be considered the conscious of the film, the driving force which projects us to the end. We follow them all for a while during which not a great deal happens other than helping us the audience assess and build trust with these new people in our lives.

During the first third, we are introduced to Shigeko as he asks the question to nobody in particular 'Am I alive? Am I alive?' We're in the home, an idyll overlooking nature on all sides, elders happily talking among themselves and up front, a monk perhaps, responding to Shigeko's rhetorical question. 'Life is two things - there is knowing you are alive because you are living your life: eating, breathing, sleeping. This is the first and more typical answer to your question. You know you are alive for you do the things from which life is made. Then there is the other kind of alive. This is the feeling of being alive. The kiss from a lover, the slap from an ex-lover, the beauty of your surroundings. This is what we all desire, to feel life, to notice that we are alive because we vibrate with it.' He has Machiko who sits nearby hold Shigeko's hand and asks whether he feels the warmth, understands the idea of feeling alive. Could this be a Why Am I here story? A Vision story? Perhaps any of the Six Stories..

In another scene we see elders and helpers painting their names on sheets of paper. It's serene, casual and the camera pauses, sways, as though disinterested but all the while asking us to see what it sees and right now, it sees Machiko and Shigeko sitting adjacent to one another, painting. The monk is here again and he and Shigeko discuss his ex-wife, Mako. We learn she died 33 years ago. The monk tells a short story, letting Shigeko know that, as it has been 33 years since she died, Mako would now become a Buddha as we all do 33 years after death. Not only that, but she won't be returning to earth. Shigeko sees Machikos painting and begins to deface it, first the middle section (leaving the name Ma-ko) then the remaining letters, finally the entire piece, ripped and smudged and 'not returning to earth'.. I would describe this scene - without thinking too hard about it - as a Values-In-Action scene. Shigeko understands the lesson the monk provided but isn't happy with the conclusions drawn and acts out.

By the by, we learn it is Shigeko's birthday (the elders and helpers all sing Happy Birthday; he smiles and performs the Winston Churchill impression with a two-fingered peace sign. And that he has a bag in his apartment which contains precious things, so precious in fact that when Machiko attempts to throw them away, Shigeko violently pushes her against the wall, injuring her wrist. In a consequent scene, Wakako and Machiko discuss happiness, sadness and life whilst sat respectively in the driver and passenger seat of Wakako's car. Wakako lets Machiko know that she had a lover once who helped cure her of some hangups she had around being serious, being right, knowing what to do. 'There are no set rules, you know'. They repeat this over and over, with more laughter and greater meaning on each iteration. This scene may exist to provide a moral centre or to put it more directly, a combination Teaching and Values-In-Action story.

The final two thirds is where Machiko and Shigeko literally get lost in the forest (they were going for a short drive but came off the road trying to avoid a hole). Rather than describe anything else, this is for you to discover for yourself.

I found the entire film simple yet astonishingly accomplished. Great stories do a lot of heavy lifting with little source material and stay with you long after the telling.

Arigato, Naomi Kawase.

A Nutshell Review: The Mourning Forest

[DICK STEEL · 5/10 · 4 September 2008]

Winning the Grand Prix of the Cannes Film Festival last year, I actually found it a tad difficult to appreciate this piece by Naomi Kawase, as compared to Shara. I am beginning to suspect that I have a profound disengagement with movies that deal with grief and loss, especially when it takes on a very detached approach in some ways with the characters constantly unable to deal with those emotions for the most parts.

The movie opened true to Kawase's penchant for capturing moving air. Here, we see lush greenery on tree tops dancing to the motion of wind, and vast open fields where blades of grass sway back and forth when caressed by the breeze. It's like watching a National Geographic episode of forests and greenery before the opening credits kicked in to start the film proper. I even suspected that M Night Shyamalan could have paid homage in his The Happening, which also had plenty of such shots put into it.

The story tells of the relationship that formed between Shigeki (Shigeki Uda) and Machiko (Machiko Ono), the former an old man in an elderly home who has been aloof after the lost of his wife some 33 years ago. 33 years is an extremely long time, and to miss someone for that long, well, you know how strong his emotions are to his wife. On the other hand, Machiko is a staff at the same elderly home, but she too is grieving internally for the loss of her son, and her husband squarely puts the responsibility and blame on her petite shoulders.

While initially starting off on the wrong foot with fiery misunderstanding, they soon hit it off in a game of tag in the great outdoors, where the camera pulls back to reveal again the large open spaces, and the two protagonists finding and connecting with each other, two tiny creatures in the space that Nature offered, only to act as a precursor of a more adventurous outing that would come soon after, in an excursion that took a turn for the unexpected when their car ran into a ditch.

In what seemed to be a wandering around aimlessly on foot deep inside nature herself, both Shigeki and Machiko had to depend on each other to keep to their wildlife tour, with the former having the objective of wanting to look for his late wife's grave, like a pilgrimage in itself. The observations from far earlier gives way to a more intimate look at the two, and Shigeki turned into some kind of enigma, clutching his all important haversack, as they go from set piece to set piece, some quaintly quiet, while others I seem to make no headway from sudden outbursts which persisted as being more whiny than anything else.

Might be a masterpiece for some to appreciate, especially with its beautiful cinematography, but everything else was certainly lost on me probably due to my lack of extreme patience, and I grief in not being able to be moved by this movie.

demands patience but does not reward it

[LunarPoise · 4/10 · 3 May 2013]

Machiko starts work as a caregiver in a rural Old Folk's Home, seemingly setting out on a new life after the traumatic loss of her child. There she meets Shigeki, who seems to take to her because her name is similar to that of his beloved wife who passed away 33 years previously. Thirty-three years is an auspicious time, says a Buddhist priest to Shigeki, because his wife can now enter nirvana. The priest's words, the arrival of Machiko, and another birthday seem to spark something inside the mentally diminished Shigeki. When Machiko takes him out for the day, a car accident sets off a chain of events that will push both Shigeki and Mahciko to extremes, and respective epiphanies.

That is as much conventional narrative interpretation as this episodic, dreamlike piece can sustain. The set up is deftly handled, with the protagonists' tragedy revealed in violent confrontation with Machiko's husband, and opaque but insistent resistance from Shigeki. Makiko Watanabe exemplifies the low-key, naturalistic performances from the actors, seemingly in balance with the amateur octogenarians around them. A game of hide-and-seek in tea fields is endearing.

However, the best and worst of art-house is on display here. The mountains, forests and streams of Nara look magical and immortal. The sense of timelessness set in contrast to the fading mortality of the care-home residents is profound. However, once the story moves towards Machiko and Shigeki's journey through the forest, the shots are held longer, the lines become sparse and difficult to fathom, and there is a lot of walking, walking, walking... I get that these two are on a journey that will help them realise, for Shigeki, that his life has had meaning, and that for Machiko, there is a way to go on through human connection. Somehow this is brought to them by hugging a large dead tree. And falling in streams. And digging. And walking, lots of walking.

It looks beautiful, the actors are charismatic, but I am not sure there is really anything else there. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia dealt with similar themes, but more poetically, with more startling, painterly images, and with a deeper resonance. The Mourning Forest opens with a promise, but ultimately it does not live up to it.

Pretentious: actually superficial and empty

[montferrato · 1/10 · 29 October 2020]

I love asian movies. But this is not the case. The photography is good, the actors are decent, but after 20 min, you realise the story is empty, very superficial. Can you visualise a good looking person with no charm? Or the picture of a nicely arranged fruit salad that actually has no taste at all? The movie lacks substance. Sometimes, in Cannes, they reward movies merely by aesthetics. This is the case. Movie has little or no soul.

Gaijin-san sure like strange movies

[ethSin · 2/10 · 7 May 2008]

This movie won the Grand Prize in Cannes Film Festival. I didn't get it, as usual.

"Discovering your true identity through a journey" is in fact my favorite theme for movies, and this film at first seemed very promising with interesting characters and beautiful sceneries of the forest. However, as the movie progressed, I became more and more confused. I'm sure this is one of those movies that's supposed to make you think, but way too little information was given even for audience to use their imagination.

I actually went back to read the plot synopsis after I finished watching the film (all confused), and realized for the first time the nurse had previously lost her child. There was a scene where an unknown man saying it's all your fault. Now that I think of it, he is probably her ex-husband blaming her for the dead child. No matter how you think about it, any movie that requires the audience to read plot synopsis to understand the plot is unacceptable as a film. There were many other things in this film that was just outright puzzling, but the movie ended without even attempting to explain any of it. I absolutely did not connect with any of the characters. While this film had an extremely beautiful cinematography, that alone is not enough to make it a great film as a whole. The screen also shook far too much. I understand this director used to be a documentary filmmaker, but that is totally unnecessary for a feature-length film.

I actually really liked the female lead actress Ono Machiko, but the male lead had too much age difference that I just couldn't see them as a couple. That "campfire" scene was completely incomprehensible for me.

It's very well-known that Japanese films that win prizes in Cannes rarely fit the typical Japanese tastes. I guess movies, especially at film festivals are considered to be art, so perhaps truly amazing works are not meant to be understood by an average viewer like me. Or maybe Western audiences simply see the Japanese as a mysterious group of people, and liked the mysterious couple in this film behaving erratically in the enigmatic forest.

This film, like many other Japanese Cannes prize-winners, had disastrous user review ratings in Japanese movie sites. I really need to start heeding their advice and not expect too much from these movies.

Sympathy Without A Cause required or The Men Can't Take It

[yusino · 3/10 · 31 May 2008]

This movie is so depressing most of the way and I fell from the grace of its reincarnation theme at the end. I was so alone when the casts are crying and yelling. The screenplay and the direction may lack some fatal information in this movie, but I had to 'understand' this because it won the Grrrrrrrand Prix at the Cannes.

Erratic is the word. I had no idea why suddenly Machiko somehow eagerly chased to catch Shigeki after he fell down from the tree. Was it because Shigeki's mischievous action ignited Machiko's frustrated sadness (her son's death) and Machiko agreed to burst it out with him? In my eyes she hadn't been such frustrated or, saying more accurately, she looked good at hiding her own secret emotion. If I should understand and recognize her action only by watching that poor explanation, well that must be something like "sympathy without a cause", which I hate most.

The latter half of the movie is filled with Machiko's sobbing call "Shigekisan, Shigekisan". It might imply her hidden cry to call her late son or her husband, but to me that sounded too self-indulging. The people on this movie might have extremely sad experience which an ordinary man like me can't even guess. Actually the movie has some snobbish impression due to its lack of explanation. Perhaps Machiko had divorced after her son's death and working for her own. OK, it must be hard. But how hard? It's too bold if the director wants me to sympathize with her sadness, again, only by that little information.

Remember, the former half of most Kurosawa movies are boring as hell. Even for this Japanese man, his b&w "classics" are way too aged and often boring. But that boring pile of information gives the roles their lives. They become even more real than real people when the latter half starts. That's where all the story begins. We need that to get along with the director's "lies".

It's not even the Eastern Zen style this movie wears. I know some Japanese movies have fine essence of that kind (eg. Ozu's), but this one only lacks what is needed to be there. It's not even poetic. In poets, the lines themselves conveys powerful meanings as well as the spaces between the lines. If the director said the motivation to make this movie was her grandmother's senility then she should know not all grandmother is senile or not every son & daughter realizes its possibility clearly. She may want people to realize that but she did little thing to make that happen.

Some nice people acclaim for its cinematography. The scenes might be clean or green but you know what I'd say. Instead, I'd like to comment on its sound mixing. At first I thought it was at the director's will when I couldn't hear the main casts' voices clearly and the sound of people or the nature surrounding the main casts were too loud. But it wasn't fixed until the end. I was too tired to see the next round (the same director's "Sharasouju" for which I waited more hopefully) when the movie was over. Or was it the cinema theater's fault?

I've been saying sh*t on this movie, but there is one big suspension. How do women think about this female director's movie? According to the rating breakdown on IMDb, obviously women appreciate this movie. I can't help imagining there is some kind of emotional code in this movie, of which only women can share without any further explanation. My comment can be nothing short of the same old "men's lack of understanding". But still.

97 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

[Bonny_Sue · 2/10 · 30 January 2021]

Second only to The Limits of Control (or as I like to call it, The Limits of My Patience), this is the most excruciatingly boring and constipated film I've ever seen. Had it not been for the fact I had to watch this for a Japanese Film Club, I would have given up after the first 15 minutes. I regret not giving up, and am considering not going to Japanese Film Club next week to save wasting another 60 minutes of my life energy on it.