Death in Cinema #5: Cherry Blossoms

"Assuming we don't have much time left...what do you want to do?"

Release Year: 2008

Country: Germany
Genre: Social drama
Director: Doris Dorrie
Screenwriter: Doris Dorrie
Cinematography: Hanno Lentz
Music: Claus Bantzer
Editing: Frank J. Muller, Inez Regnier
Actors: Elmar Wepper, Hannelore Elsner, Aya Irizuki

Letting go is one of the toughest and most complicated emotional process we can experience. Losing someone hurts, not only because we are unable to physically interact with them anymore, but also due to a bittersweet realization that every moments and memories spent in their company are now impossible to be experienced again. Sometimes we are unable to move on, stuck in the state of denial even though we always know that nothing in this world lasts forever. And of course, death is the ultimate evocation of that feeling, as shown in Cherry Blossoms.

The film focused on a relationship between old married couple, Trudi (Elsner) and Rudi (Wepper). Trudi had just been informed by Rudi's doctor that he is suffering from an incurable cancer, and so she sets out for them to have a long last trip (Rudi himself is unaware about his condition) and visit their children. However, the family reunion ends in an uncomfortable note as the couple gradually realize that they had grown too far apart from their children. Tragedy then struck as Trudi died on her sleep, leaving Rudi completely on his own. Spurred by his wife's unfulfilled desire to visit Mt Fuji and her fascination on Butoh dance, Rudi goes to Japan. There, he eventually forms a unique bond with teenage dancer Yu (Irizuki), who teaches him on how Butoh can be a medium to stay in touch with the dead soul of our loved ones.

Technically, Cherry Blossoms is a German film, but it has remarkably strong Japanese influence. The entire second half takes place in Japan, some of Japanese cultural aspects (particularly the Butoh dance and the titular cherry blossoms) are used as plot devices, and the movie itself can be considered as a homage to Yasujiro Ozu's classic masterpiece Tokyo Story. The whole family segment is practically lifted straight from that movie, making identical point on the strained relationship between grown-up children and their aging parents. However, Cherry Blossoms is not a simple remake, as it eventually morphs into an elegant and beautiful story of its own.



The story moves through several different emotional perspectives and relationships. First, we are shown the way Trudi's and Rudi's children considered them a nuisance, and how really detached they are from their parents despite all the smiles and courteous surface. This parent-child conflict is easily the weakest part in Cherry Blossoms, perhaps because it is a relatively inferior imitation of Ozu, but more likely because it feels too crude and theatrical (Rudi accidentally overheard his son complaining about him on the phone; the children whine and bitch about how bothersome it is to tend to their parents).


However, everything between Trudi and Rudi is pure gold. Wepper, and especially Elsner, succeed in radiating the level of affection and understanding that can only be achieved by two people who have been loving each other for a very long time. Initially we see things mostly through Trudi's eyes, getting ready to let go while trying her best to push the much less adventurous Rudi into having a nice last memory together. Then, after her shocking and ironic death, we are fully placed in Rudi's shoes; a lost and lonely man finding a new friend in Yu, a whimsical kid who is also completely alone in the world after her mother's death.

The Rudi-Yu relationship also works, despite the initially strange concept of an old man bonding with a pre-teen girl. The film wisely avoid taking their relationship into an inappropriate direction, and instead presents Yu and her Butoh dance as the embodiment of Trudi's passion that Rudi had never properly acknowledge during her lifetime.


Images are rich in this film, with highlights being the Mt Fuji spectacle, the cherry blossoms observation, and numerous demonstrations of Butoh dance moves and expressions. However, the most magnificent image comes near the end; of two particular characters dancing together on the edge of a lake near Mt Fuji. The dance itself, the context, and the piece of lilting music that accompanies it combine into an extremely affecting scene that carries extraordinary emotional impact. It is a fitting and beautiful climax to the movie.


Of the five films that I reviewed for Death In Cinema, Cherry Blossoms is my favorite, barely edging out After Life. It is true that there are missteps and some scenes that don't become as effective as Dorrie perhaps intended, but some great acting, sumptuous visual and evocative mood make this film a powerfully bittersweet experience.

Death in Cinema #4: After Life

"To know that you belong in someone else's precious memory...
that is the most wonderful feeling."

Release Year: 1998
Country: Japan
Genre: Social drama/fantasy drama
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Screenwriter: Hirokazu Koreeda
Cinematography: Yutaka Yamazaki
Music: Yasuhiro Kasamatsu
Editing: Hirokazu Koreeda
Actors: Arata, Erika Oda, Susumu Terajima, Takashi Naito, Kei Tani


Memories.

Those are what connected us to our past, projecting and highlighting the best and worst moments in our temporary life. There are happy memories we cherish about, painful memories that we wanted to forget but unable to, and random trivial memories that never seem important until they suddenly creep on us and bring unexpected emotion. They are all wonderfully subjective things, never be limited by mere facts, and enhanced by our perception and desire to interpret, re-interpret and re-construct them the way we wanted to.

Thus, After Life's conceptual question makes for a brilliant hook: if you have to select one memory from your entire life, what is it going to be? Which memory defines your life and that you prefer to remember above everything else?

After Life takes place in some sort of dormitory located 'in-between', a congregation site for dead people before they go on to 'Heaven'. There, a sort of administrative process is conducted: the recently deceased are informed by a team of 'counselors' that they have a week to pick one memory that they want to take with them to Heaven. Once they have made their choice, the officers will then reconstruct that memory, film-style, on the final day of their week-long stay.

Naturally, there are many questions that entail such a very interesting premise. What is exactly meant by the concept of Heaven in this film? What is the purpose of the whole procedure, and why the dead can only choose just a single memory? Where did those 'memory counselors' came from, and why are they chosen for the job? Why the concept of sin, punishment, and Hell are completely absent from the film? Some of those questions are answered, some are not; but then, Koreeda's primary intention is not to construct a multi-dimensional spiritual-fantasy world. The 'in-between administration office' is merely a tool, a medium used to raise questions and provoke thoughts about the process of recalling and cherishing memories at the end of one's existence.


(Mild spoiler)

We are shown the different ways the dead people (all of them seem at peace with the fact that they are dead) react to the news that they have to submit their most precious memory; some can do it right away, some change their minds after making an initial choice, and some other cannot make a choice at all. The story then focus on the counselors', particularly Takashi Mochizuki (Arata) and his quasi-love interest Shiori Satonaka (Oda), revealing that they used to be those people who cannot choose a memory to keep. They stayed in the place and help reconstructing other people's memories instead, and there is something really bittersweet within that whole notion.

Even with its nearly two-hour running time, After Life fleets by within its quiet and dream-like atmosphere, suggesting that there is still a lot left unsaid. The narrative approach is slightly scattershot, highlighting moments instead of the people in them, and there are times when I wish they would flesh out the characters more and give us more time to get to know them better. Yet, there is no denying that the movie is at its best during the montage-like scenes; the two best sequences are the one showing people recounting their chosen memory (some of them are actors working from a script, but others are actually non-actors talking about their real experiences), and another one when the counselors work together to assemble a film based on the deceased's memories--the metaphor on the latter is obvious.


Sometimes, you can see that a movie is clearly a personal and heartfelt project from the director, and it is indeed with the case with Koreeda, who was inspired to make After Life by his late grandfather's Alzheimer-induced memory loss. The concept, strongly rooted in a utopian vision, might be too ludicrous for some, but it works greatly as a gentle reflection on the inextricable link between memory, life, and death. Something that can make you think and feel at such a level is very special, indeed.

Death in Cinema #3: Gerry

"So we were going east all right, which is a total Gerry..."

Release Year: 2002
Country: United States
Genre: Psychological drama
Director: Gus Van Sant
Screenwriter: Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, Gus Van Sant
Cinematography: Harris Savides
Music: Arvo Part
Editing: Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, Gus Van Sant
Actors: Casey Affleck, Matt Damon

One of the most important accomplishments of renowned arthouse and indie director Gus Van Sant is 'The Death Trilogy". It consisted of three separate movies (Gerry, Elephant, and Last Days) that acted as reflections on existentialism and death, filmed in an unconventional manner that emphasized time and space much more than character and plotting. Of the three, Gerry is the most acclaimed; a story of two male friends being lost in a desert, low on dialogue and action but extremely thick on atmosphere and philosophical implications.

The term "Gerry" refers to the nicknames of both main characters (their real names are never revealed), and also used by them to refer to something dumb in general (apparently, it can be used as either noun, verb, or adjective, as in "Stop being a Gerry", "We keep Gerrying this", and "You're so Gerry"). There is a lot of these 'Gerry-situations' in the movie, starting from how the two friends being lost in a desert, without having any food or water on them. From there, it's a (very) slow romp through the vast landscape as their hope of making it out alive steadily fades away.

If the idea of watching two people stumble along slowly and occasionally mumbling to each other for almost the whole movie's duration sounds terribly dull to you, then stay far away. Van Sant constantly favored long camera shots throughout, with each shot averaged 10 minutes in length; the grand total of shots is 100, which is a remarkably low number for a feature film. Majority of them are tracking shots of the two characters walking (often bereft of sound except for the steady, crunching, noise of footsteps) or simply shots that locked in a certain part of the massive landscape. Again, if you cannot bear having to stare at the same thing (sky, canyon, two people walking) for 5-10 minutes, Gerry will probably bore you out of your mind.


However, once we're willing to adapt with the extremely slow pace and soak in the atmosphere, we shall be able to appreciate what Gerry has to offer. The cinematography is oftentimes beautiful, but more importantly, it reflects a Human vs. Nature conflict in its purest. There are no hungry predators or natural disaster, yet the overwhelming canyon, boundless sand, and scorching sun all combine into Nature's ruthless punishment for living mortals stupid Gerry enough to underestimate it.

(the above screenshot, by the way, represented what I consider as the movie's best scene; it is when Gerry [Affleck] somehow got himself rock-marooned while Gerry [Damon] look at him from far below. The far-away angle of the camera, the quiet exchange between the two, and the laborious length make the scene so much more effective than it supposed to be).


The acting and characterization are as minimalistic as they could ever be, yet so much can be inferred about the two characters. Affleck and Damon, who also co-wrote and co-edited the film, establish their characters' relationship and behavioral dynamic not through lengthy exposition or dramatic moments, but through sparse exchange of words and--more importantly--through the many periods of silence, either the comfortable kind or the tense kind of silence. The deceptively flat and unemotional acting conceal a complex set of emotions beneath the surface, which culminates in the shocking ending.


The plot of Gerry never really becomes more complicated or dramatic than the premise of "two friends got lost, walk in vain", and yet the underlying themes brim with the density; of male relationship, arrogance, hopelessness, faith, and death as the ultimate form of mercy. Above all, it is a quiet and elegant observation of two mortals flailing around something so overpowering, ageless, and oppressive.

Death in Cinema #2: Ponette

"God Almighty, you know my mommy is dead because she is with you.
I want to talk to my mommy."

Release Year: 1996
Country: France
Genre: Social drama
Director: Jacques Doillon
Screenwriter: Jacques Doillon
Cinematography: Caroline Champetier
Music: Philippe Sarde
Editing: Jacqueline Lecompte
Actors: Victoire Thivisol, Matiaz Bureau Caton, Delphine Schiltz


My first direct contact with death happened with my grandfather's sudden death when I was eight year-old. At the time, I already comprehended well what was going on and knew there is no chance that I will ever see or talk to my grandpa again. Yet, I wonder how I would have reacted if I was some years younger and have not properly understand the concept of death and afterlife yet. How would a mind of a very young child react to the death of their closest, and how should an adult educate them on the issue and help them cope?

Ponette is an attempt to answer those questions, presenting death as seen from the point of view of a four-year-old girl.

The mother of Ponette (Thivisol) died in a car crash, leaving the four-year-old and her father (Xavier Beauvois). Unable to raise his daughter while still dealing with his own grief, Ponette's father left her under the charge of her aunt, Claire (Claire Nebout); who has two kids of her own, Matiaz (Caton) and Delphine (Schiltz). During her stay there, the confused Ponette tries to find the answer of why her mother is not coming back and how she could see or talk to her again.

First thing's first, Thivisol's performance is extremely outstanding and probably the best child performance I have ever seen on a big screen. She plays her character with the amount of natural talent, spontaneity, and liveliness that surpassed so many older female actresses, and end up being the youngest ever actress to ever won a major acting award (a documentary called Joeuer Ponette was later made to highlight how Doillon and the crew guided the supremely talented girl throughout the movie's production). Thivisol is clearly a lot more intelligent than her age suggested, being able to convey the confusion, grief, and heart-breaking innocence every time the camera is trained on her.


In fact, the entire movie is built around its child performers. There are only two major adult characters, and one of them only appeared at the very beginning and very end of the movie. It makes for perhaps one of the most naturalistic and adorable casts in a movie, playfully bouncing off each other and displaying extreme ease in front of the camera. Oddly, there are scenes that seem out of place considering the age of the characters--Matiaz' extreme cuddling with Ponette, for instance, or the way the very young girls can already gossip about each other's crushes--I guess French kids just grow up really fast?

The most interesting aspect of the whole thing, however, is the way Ponette and the kids around her interpret death and the spiritual afterlife. The segment when Ponette, Matiaz, and Delphine discuss God and religion is a great example in showing how religion and fantasy collide in the impressionable and speculative minds of children. Amusing yet insightful, it implies that as imperfect as these kids' knowledge is, they also display the lack of cynicism and skepticism often found in adults. There is also the character of Ada (Léopoldine Serre), another small girl who tells Ponette that she must passes the test to be a "Child of God", so that she can convinces God into letting her talk to her dead mother. This make-believe story lead to some of the most touching moments in the movie; if you don't tear up even a bit when Ponette struggles to pass Ada's test, your heart is probably made of stone.


As alluded before, the adults' role is very small. The character of Ponette's father (who deserves a punch on the nose for leaving his kid like that) is hardly a role model for parents in similar situations, while even though Ponette's aunt did try to get through to her, the girl is much more inclined to listen to her friends instead. It seems that Doillon really wanted to focus strictly on childlike perspective, perception and imagination, which eventually leads into the rather controversial ending.

(SPOILER)

In the end, Ponette meets the ghost/apparition/dream of her mother, who tells her to be happy even though she is no longer there. This occurence is what finally enables Ponette to overcome her grief and let go. At first, this solution might feels like a "cheat" and a too convenient fix for Ponette's emotional turmoil. However, this narrative choice highlights the central theme of faith and spirituality in this movie: Ponette believes and prays hard, thus she is finally rewarded with the "chance" to meet her mother for the last time. Or you can also reason that it is a result of the internalized process inside her mind and a form of coping mechanism, yet one can't help but feel that the faith-based explanation is probably what the film-makers are aiming for.

The ending did bother me for a while, but I eventually appreciated it after thinking some more.


The movie (and the camera in particular) can feels pandering and manipulative at times by having Ponette cried in so many scenes and extensively closing up on her sad face, but it is not like there are many other ways to fully convey her grief effectively. Besides, that should not take anything away from either the very brave premise or Thivisol's performance. In short, this is a powerful tale of faith and mortality through the eyes of a very little girl and an implied reminder for adults of how malleable and fragile the minds of children are.

(Thivisol does not appear in many other movies after this one, her most prominent role being the Juliette Binoche's daughter in Oscar-nominated Chocolat. It seems that she is on hiatus from the movie industry, perhaps for academical reasons; but even if she does not take up acting again, those who watched her in Ponette shall never forget her magnificent display of talent there).

Death in Cinema #1: Departures

"Uh...the job advertisement said departures, so I thought it meant travel agency."

Release Year: 2008
Country: Japan
Genre: Social drama
Director: Yojiro Takita
Screenwriter: Kundo Koyama
Cinematography: Takeshi Hamada
Music: Joe Hisaishi
Editing: Akimasa Kawashima
Actors: Masahiro Motoki, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Ryoko Hirosue

Preparing ceremony and all the traditional rituals for your recently departed family must be one of the most depressing things in life. It is the kind of things that we don't like to plan or think about, and oftentimes when it happens we are so overcame with grief that we hardly have the time nor energy to practice all those rituals (or perhaps don't even have the proper knowledge about it in the first place). Therefore, many of us asked for the help from people who dedicated their life toward preparing and performing rituals for the dead and their family. Departures (Okuribito) is a movie about those people, one of them a young man who previously have no experience or knowledge whatsoever about the whole profession.


Daigo Kobayashi (Motoki), a former cellist in a Tokyo-based orchestra, decided to return to his hometown in Yamagata with his wife Mika (Hirosue) after the orchestra was disbanded. Hoping to start a new career, Daigo answered a newspaper job advertisement for "assisting departures", thinking that it is related to the business of travel agency. To his shock, it turns out that the job actually deals with the preparing of dead people or the "departed". Daigo reluctantly accepted, and from there he learn the art and trades of departure ritual under his much experienced boss Sasaki (Yamazaki), while hiding the truth from his wife and dealing with the negative stigma often associated with people who cleaned up and prepared dead bodies.

Departures opens with a strong and memorable prologue, showing Daigo and Sasaki preparing a female corpse...who turns out to be a 'he' instead of a 'she'. The scene establishes the early tone of the movie: solemn and poignant, yet also capable of occasional humor that somehow does not feel inappropriate or out-of-place. From the prologue, the movie goes back in time and shows Daigo's backstory, how he landed the job and his early struggles in adapting with the peculiar new job. It is overall a remarkably fine start, boosted by Motoki's expressive acting as Daigo. He is instantly likable as a main character and easily generate laughs and chuckles with all the flailing around while learning the ropes of the job (comedic highlights include Daigo's "job interview" with Sasaki, and when Daigo has to role-play as a corpse for a TV demonstration).


The early part of Departures is not only a good black comedy, but also an effective introduction to the art of Japanese departure rituals. The embalming, make-up application, wrapping, and cremation of dead bodies are presented meticulously in methodical steps throughout the movie. It also raises the issue of how the practice (specifically those who perform it as profession) is considered taboo in Japan, which becomes an important part and main source of conflict in the story. Presumably, the line of work implies something foul both in physical (coming in touch with dead bodies extensively) and conceptual (getting paid for the suffering of others) sense, and this makes for an interesting cultural observation.

There is also an underlying theme of death in more abstract form, as represented by the end of Daigo's dream to be a world-renowned cellist. Yet, the movie not only shows the quiet resignation of somebody who lost his primary goal and had to start over from a blank slate, but also implies that just like how the memories of our late beloved ones linger, remnants of a dead dream will also remain and should stay with us (it may be interesting to note that I watched Whisper of The Heart--a Japanese animation movie about the birth of a dream--not long before this, and the two movies' themes connected really well). The idea is demonstrated in several great scenes when Daigo busts out his cello and plays it with a wistful look in his eyes. The cello music, by the way, sounds very beautiful and is a perfect fit to the theme and overall mood.


Unfortunately, I find the movie to weaken as it introduces a series of sub-plots involving Daigo's missing father, the strained relationship with his wife (who eventually discover what is he really up to), and his old friend who started to abhors him when Daigo's job becomes common knowledge. Those sub-plots might be hampered by a clumsy use of foreshadowing; hinting future events in a story can be great if used sparingly and effectively, but Departures is kind of bad at this. There are some instances of dialogues or events in the middle part that very obviously telegraph what will happen by the end, and it simply killed my sense of anticipation. Not to mention that some of the characters (especially Mika the wife) are relatively weak.


All things considered though, Departures is a very fine movie that manages to make its concept much more engrossing, enlightening, and funnier than it seems; especially during the first half hour. The ending, while weakened by the predictable and at times melodramatic narrative choices, still carries some emotional punch and poignancy with it.

Amusing yet introspective, resigned yet hopeful, quiet yet lively; it is an elegant reflection of a sacred ceremony and the art of letting go.

Special Feature: Death in Cinema

"Kono hoshi no musuu no chiri no hitotsu dato....ima no boku niwa rikai dekinai."

(I was told that I am just one of the countless specks of dust in this planet...but that is something that I cannot yet understand. -Uninstall, Bokurano)

So, this blog is back to activity again after two-month hiatus. This time, I will try to do something different at the start of every months, which is to review a group of movies that shares the same thematic issue. In other words, I will pick a theme for each month and review about five to seven movies that revolve around that theme. This month's theme is death/mortality, and I had picked five movies that examined the issue from various perspectives (actually, this feature was intended to be written on December because the 'end of year' aspect fits well with the theme, but I was being a lazy procrastinator. Just pretend that you read this in December if you want).

When most of us go to watch movies, we usually do it for recreational purpose or escapism. We want to see something uplifting, preferably with a happy ending. Something that do not remind us of the darker parts in life. Therefore, making movies about death must seems like a bad idea; what kind of people want to see something that remind them their life will end or that they will lose people they love someday? However, in my humble opinion, the greatest kind of movies are those that can tackle hard issues like that and managed to provide enlightenment to the audience. The concept of death in general has to be accepted and embraced, instead of feared. Thus, the best movies about death are the ones that presented death not as a scary and gloomy thing, but as an absolute fact of life that we can learn and even take motivation from.

After I did my research for this feature, I noticed that Japan contributed a very remarkable amount of works related to this particular theme; not just in cinema, but also in various other story-telling mediums. The Japanese society puts heavy emphasis on the matters of life, death, spirituality, and existentialism in general, a very interesting fact that I am eager to revisit in the forms of essay or research in the future once I increased my knowledge about the country's cultural roots and history.

As for this feature, I could have easily find ten great Japanese movies about death and make this an all-Japanese list, but for the sake of diversity I chose only to included two of them (three, if you counted the German movie Cherry Blossoms, which takes place in Japan and strongly influenced by the country's cultural aspects). The movies that I regrettably will not review are Yasujiro Ozu's classic masterpiece Tokyo Story, Kinji Fukasaku's hyper-violent educational satire Battle Royale, and Studio Ghibli's war animation Grave of The Fireflies (NOT because they are not better than the five movies that I chose to review, but because I don't have enough thoughts yet in order to be able to write a capable analysis of them).

The first movie in this feature will be Departures, a 2008 Japanese film that won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Films.