Film
Maborosi
- Director
- Hirokazu Kore-eda
- Certificate
- PG
- Running Time
- 110 mins
A young, happily married Japanese woman is devastated when her hubby deliberately walks under a train on the way home from work for no apparent reason. She becomes convinced that he’s some kind of Angel of Death bringing tragedy to those closest to her, while her conservative family attempt to obliterate the social shame of suicide by arranging a new marriage. So off she trots with her young son to shack up with the well-meaning new bloke and his pre-teen daughter in his idyllic seaside abode. But her brother’s wedding brings her back to Osaka, where she begins to realise that she cannot shake off the ghosts from her past so easily.
Those who like their art movies slow and contemplative with minimal dialogue cluttering up all the longueurs should beat a path to former documentarist Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s fictional feature debut from 1995. The winner of the Chicago Film Festival’s top prize and the Special Jury Award at Venice, Maborosi is guaranteed to delight arthouse traditionalists, though the uninitiated should beware that in the paint-drying stakes it makes The Scent of Green Papaya look like Independence Day. Much of the film is shot in semi-darkness, with the rest comprising lingering wide-angle shots of nothing much happening – often in silhouette – in a meditative sort of way, accompanied by occasional bursts of a spare, mildly melancholic score courtesy of Hou Hsian-Hsien’s collaborator Chen Ming-Chang. Dreams and folklore play a minor role – the film’s title being taken from the legend of the illusions that draw hapless fisherfolk to their doom at sea – lending a spiritual tone to what otherwise would have been a stark portrayal of grief. You’ll either be hooked within the first five minutes and enthralled until the closing credits supply a full stop rather than a conclusion, or spend the entire two hours vowing never again to watch a film whose own publicity describes it as “poetic”.
The Waterhsed’s screenings are part of the comprehensive Of Flesh & Blood: The Cinema of Hirokazu Kore-eda season.
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