Hirokazu Kore-eda makes somber, majestic films about quietly unhappy people, people whose lives didn’t amount to everything they might have hoped, but who still hold a candle for tomorrow. You can chart a direct line from his work back to the gorgeous films of Yasujiro Ozu; like Ozu, Kore-eda understands that the substance of our lives is captured not in the grand acts of defiance or reinvention, but in the countless, frequently indistinct moments between, as well as the spaces in which we spend these moments. I imagine they find a sort of redemption in venerating these segues and stillnesses; for the lonely and longing and perpetually noncommittal, the beauty both these directors find in our everyday interactions is a profound comfort.
Fittingly, both of them are thus masters of unmoving long takes; sequences where the camera simply lounges on the floor of their characters’ homes, capturing all the incidental ephemera of their lives, and the perpetual negotiations of intent informing every casual conversation. Whereas most of our stories offer an escape from mundanity, Kore-eda testifies that it is in the mundane and overlooked that the essence of coexistence lurks, and perhaps the foundation of love alongside it. We are not most ourselves in our moments of triumph and tragedy; our true nature rests in between, in the ways we conduct ourselves when there is no great struggle on the horizon, and the people and places we choose to engage and frequent.
It is little surprise then that Maborosi opens not with a moment of overt action, but one of preparation: a young woman fussing with her hair as she addresses a hand mirror, clearly nervous about whatever’s to come. There is more vulnerability, more vitality in this moment than one might expect – in fact, it is in these moments of expectation and anxiety that our inner selves are revealed. Kore-eda will certainly convey our moments of attempted triumph as well, but it is these moments that provide context for the frictious trials, that inform who we attempt to be in the daylight, and tell us in the audience how well these characters have succeeded in rising to their most optimistic self-images.
As the ring of a bicycle’s bell calls our subject outside, Kore-eda’s philosophy of composition is immediately vindicated. A still shot down an alley offers a silent universe of implications, immediately tethering darkness to security and uncertainty to light, this girl to the threshold and her departing grandmother to the great, forbidding beyond. Why would the camera need to move when every still frame is a perfectly composed tapestry, the interplay of light and darkness, faces and objects all conveying such a singular, enchanting effect? I struggle not to repeat myself, but “majestic” really is the word for his visual style – not just beautiful, but somehow inherently stately as well, turning ramshackle group homes and neglected alleys into scenes as wondrous and dignified as any act of painted worship. Kore-eda’s cinematography is his thesis; he sees so much that is wondrous and worth celebrating in every incidental life story, and when placed alongside his camera’s eye, it is impossible for us not to see it too.
Kore-eda’s cinematography similarly echoes Ozu in his methods of conveying and valuing spatial distance. His setups frequently allow the camera’s eye to peer through multiple rooms or layers of action, counterbalancing the relative stillness of his compositions with their ability to capture the small movements all throughout a tunnel or hallway’s worth of scenery, thereby demonstrating how even moments of rest are still characterized by personality-rich incidental actions. So too does this balance the inherent loneliness of his characters; in the context of these compositions, we see that in spite of their feelings, they are never entirely alone.
Given all of this, there is clearly a great weight instilled in the film’s first words, spoken by our subject’s retreating grandmother. Catching up to her on the bridge, she begs her to return home, to which her grandmother replies “I want to die at home, so I’m going back to Shikoku.” This is not just an obstinate, sentimental desire; in Kore-eda’s worlds, the connection between people and their environments is always clear, verging on sacred. We are not just ourselves, we are reflections of and reflected in the environments we choose to inhabit. Our lives are spent in a discordant series of rooms that we all struggle to make our own – is it any surprise that we’d wish to die in the rooms we have made such extensions of ourselves?
This opening sequence is a memory recalled in a dream, but it is also a microcosm of the film to come. Maborosi is a sparse, quiet film even by Kore-eda’s standards; all of the touchstones defining it are present in heroine Yumiko’s dream of the day she let her grandmother walk away. The mirror, a tool through which we affirm and solidify our identity, hoping our reflection might offer some clue as to our true nature. The bell, a call from beyond, a symbol of security now perverted into a reminder of loss. And that retreating back, brooking no prayer or argument, offering only questions as the ones we love pass forever away from us.
Waking as a young adult with husband and infant son, Yumiko soon experiences a repetition of her grandmother’s stately departure. Her husband is Ikuo; he works at a nearby factory, the pair making due in spite of limited means in a small Osaka apartment. Neither are entirely secure in their position, and neither are willing to admit it; instead, they voice their misgivings and regrets via commentary on reflections. Discontent with their adult selves, Yumiko mentions how her “freckles started to bother” her while staring in a bathroom mirror, while Ikuo finds his reflection in a former sumo wrestler turned truck driver. “I don’t know why he keeps that topknot… something about it kinda depresses me.” Yumiko handles her anxieties by voicing them, keeping the spark alive through acts of romantic spontaneity. Ikuo says nothing, and then one day walks in front of a train.
The second half of Maborosi is largely concerned with Yumiko again pursuing that retreating back, seeking answers, finding little to satisfy. A lifetime is a strange thing; things seem unchanging until the changes are irreversible, and then we are left adrift, no longer moored in a life and setting that reflects our own self-image. Yumiko remarries the diligent Tamio, who lives in a small seaside village with his daughter Tomoko. She moves there with her son Yuichi, but the mirrors and bells seem to follow her – the symbol of her fractured self-image, and the call of her absent first husband, alongside the last time her life felt certain of direction. Such versatile symbols are unfortunately inescapable. They call to her from bedroom corners and street puddles, from passing bicycles and the lips of her associates. “You’re sure there weren’t any signs?” “He didn’t seem any different from usual.” As with her grandmother, she is left to construct meaning in their absence, knowing only her previous understanding of their life was a lie. Is there an answer hidden in these hillsides, in these vast empty canvasses and the roar of the sea?
The rest is simply living. Yumiko resides in Tamio’s village, integrates as she can, finds herself reminded of Ikuo’s death, retreats and walks forward. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez distills the essence of life to a simple call and response: “What do you expect? Time passes.” “That’s how it goes, but not so much.” The weathering of a painted bike, the turning of a season’s chill, the outrageous sprouting of helpless infants into curious children. If the mirror cannot offer solace or certainty, perhaps the next generation can – gallantly exploring the hills and fields of Tamio’s home, Yuichi and Tomoko seem to possess more confidence than any adult could hope for. Their enthusiasm is echoed in the film’s most enthralling composition: the pair running on an embankment high above the sea wall, forms reflected in still waters, a mirror that for once offers a shape we can recognize.
Children have it easy, of course. Unbound by expectation or propriety, they are free to choose their own identities – for the rest of us, we must inevitably find definition in reflection, whether through the mirror’s glass or how our behavior is received by others. We are social animals, none of us possessing an identity that exists apart from our reception. And with Yumiko’s reception tethered to those two retreating backs, it is difficult indeed for her to find a new place, new purpose, new self. She wavers and mourns and accuses, Kore-eda studiously capturing the small rises and familiar falls of living with uncertainty, cohabitating with grief. His compositions are a comfort; though Yumiko is surrounded by great empty spaces, her environments reflect not just her isolation, but also the grandeur of each incidental moment. No one in a Kore-eda feature must explain that life is precious; within his films, the gift that is existence is forever self-evident.
Why, then, did Ikuo choose to kill himself? And why can’t Yumiko escape his specter, let the past be the past, let Tamio’s home become her own? Her feelings waver till the very end, when she meets yet declines to board the train back to Osaka, then hears a sound ringing in the distance. A funeral procession led by Ikuo’s inescapable bells, drawing her towards the surf. Grief is as inescapable as those ringing bells, as the looming clouds; we must find a way to seek happiness alongside it, wherever our pursuit takes us. All we are is ephemeral, a brief period of passage between cold earth and gray sky – but my god, is that sliver of experience wondrous. As Kore-eda’s still camera attests, there is so much worth savoring in this life.
Yumiko stands on the jetty, staring towards the funeral bonfire, her reflection wavering in the waters below. “I just don’t understand. Why did he kill himself… why was he walking along the tracks. Why… why do you think he did it?” To this, Tamio offers an answer inherited from his father. “Dad used to go out to sea. He says when he was out alone, he used to see a beautiful light, shimmering in the distance, calling him. I think it can happen to anyone.”
The two stand alone among the rocks and waters, past and future, reflection and self. Yumiko considers this answer, considers how it is good to have people who love you, but how that might not always be enough. There is no sense in it – no responsibility, no blame, no reason we can easily assign. The sea calls to us, and some of us will answer. That is all.
“What fine weather we’re having,” she states some time later, admiring the inlet that has become her home. “A wonderful season, indeed,” Tamio’s father concurs. She walks beyond him, rushing to join her husband and children, helping Yuichi to master his brand new bike. Their forms become indistinct as they spin and embrace, melding into the scenery of the seaside village. It is a beautiful day.
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