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.
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