Maborosi = Maborosi no hikari

Makikio Esumi plays a young wife and mother in Tokyo whose husband inexplicably commits suicide. Eventually remarrying, she moves from her cramped working class environment in Tokyo to live with her new husband in a remote fishing village on the coast. Scarred by the devastating effects of her first husband’s death, she finds herself fearful of committing fully to her new relationship, anxious that her very presence brings ill fortune and death. This astounding debut film is a profoundly spiritual examination of the nature of grief and acceptance. Dialogue is pared down to a minimum; instead the camera observes its characters framed against the contrasting urban sprawl of Tokyo and the windswept coast of rural Japan. The meditative and richly poetic mise-en-scene explores the importance of environment, nature and landscape in defining a person’s relationship to the world. Recalling the films of Japan’s celebrated director Ozu, “Maborosi” is a deeply affecting and richly rewarding art film which reaffirms that cinema too can be a place for the creation of transcendental and spiritual works that assist in defining that complex, ambiguous phenomena which is the human condition.