Screenwriter-director-producer:
Naomi Kawase
Executive producer: Hengameh Panahi
Cast:
Shigeki: Shigeki Uda
Machiko: Machiko Ono
Wakako: Makiko
Watanabe
Shigeki's wife: Kanako Masuda
Machiko's husband: Yoichiro Saito
Running time: 97 minutes
Real life & emotions that will leave a lasting
impression
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Copyright. JapaneseCustomer.com, 2015. All
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Set in rural Japan where green tea
leaves are grown and harvested. The movie opens with a scene of elderly people
outside caring for vegetables. The story slowly unfolds to reveal a care centre
run by staff that helps elderly patients with companionship, outings, eating
and daily life skills. We learn how the residents and staff live and work
together, the difficulties of aging (how people become territorial & won’t let others near them or their
possessions). The caregivers view is also explored sharing the long hours,
frustrations, backbreaking, mind challenging, thankless hours, taking the brunt
of others emotions, fear and anxiety. The movie is very slow (normal for
Japanese films to take in the whole scenery and slow you down to their pace),
it sets the scene carefully and puts you into real Japanese lifestyle and the
centre of the story.
The unfolding bond between caregiver Machiko and resident
Shigeki. An outing to the mountain for a hike together starts well but soon
comes off the rails when the car goes off the road into a ditch which distracts
Shigeki who disappears alone into the forest leaving Machiko to get help and
return to look for Shigeki. Frantically she searches the nearby area looking
for him with all the fear that she must account for her actions if she can’t find him. Eventually after much
anguish she finds him and starts to run after him only to see him steal a
watermelon from a nearby field, during the ensuing chase he drops the
watermelon which smashes. This allows the two to catch up and start again as
they sit and eat the watermelon in the hot afternoon sun. A relief after all
the preceding drama.
Shigeki then leads Machiko into the
mountains following a path that leads to where his dead wifes ashes are buried.
In reality he is making a final pilgrimage on the thirty third year after her death
(known in Japanese Buddhism as sanjusankaiki when the soul of the departed
leaves the earth for the final time never to return). Shigeki has made the trip
to say his final goodbyes bringing letters and diaries he has written to his
wife during the preceding years. When he reaches the spot he places the items
on the ground and wishes he could go away with her. He lies down on the ground
and prepares himself. Machiko is clearly shocked being an unknowing accomplice
in his suicide, upset she leaves him there.
Real life & emotions that make a powerful
story that will leave a lasting impression.
#japanesecustomer, movie review, #japan, lifestyle, culture, the mourning forest, naomi kawase, cannes, award, winner,www.japanesecustomer.com
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