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.

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