Maborosi
by Hirokazu Koreeda
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DVD details
Actor: Gohki Kashiyama, Makiko Esumi, Naomi Watanabe, Tadanobu Asano, Takashi Nait?Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Cinematographer: Masao Nakabori
Editor: Tomoyo Oshima
Producer: Naoe Gozu
Producer: Yutaka Shigenobu
Writer: Teru Miyamoto
Writer: Yoshihisa Ogita
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Japanese (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Japanese (Dubbed)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-11-21
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: New Yorker Video
DVD Reviews of Maborosi
DVD Review: Contemporary Classic in the vein of Ozu
Summary: 5 Stars
The climax of the movie comes in a long shot - no closeups to dramatize the emotion, just a long shot of two people almost in silhouette. Yet it comes with a deep emotional punch. Very much like an Ozu film, the movie proceeds with the joys of daily living, though we are aware of an underlying concern that has yet to be resolved. And once you have been lulled into this languid state, comes a beautifully filmed ten minute sequence ending with this unorthodox but truly effective long shot.
This is a must see for film lovers. Watch with your full attention and let the movie's rhythm sway you.
DVD Review: Wonderful movie with a terrible DVD release.
Summary: 5 Stars
The film is one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ever made but whoever did the DVD compression was an idiot. It looks like a bad YouTube video stream with JPEG blocks dancing in the all of the many dark scenes. The DVD is letterboxed TV format on a single layer. It has the look of a cheap rush job. Of course the true culprits are the producers of the DVD New Yorker Video.DVD Review: A picture story
Summary: 4 Stars
Beautiful, beautiful pictures.
A tale told, almost without words, about the tragic power of irrevocable loss and the redemptive power of everyday life.
DVD Review: Threatens Sleeping Pill Manufacturers
Summary: 1 Stars
I watched "Maborosi." I forgot it completely. I rented it again, suffering through the entire film. While I acknowledge that many have found a lyrical meaning in this film, I was not one of them. Many of the scenes are shot so darkly, that you find yourself watching a crack of sky through a window for several minutes. Actually, I can look out my own window to experience that. Hirokazu Kore-eda was a documentary filmmaker before shooting this first feature. It is a major snooze-fest, threatening sleeping pill manufacturers as a better cure for insomnia.
Yukimo is a young married woman. Played by Makiko Esumi who would also star in "Pistol Opera" in 2002, she is a mostly stoic figure. Stoicism can be used effectively such as how Michael Caine employs it in the recent film Sleuth. There, the words that are said help the viewer interpret Caine's frozen stares as deep and assign thought and emotion. Here, there is very little dialogue so Esumi mostly seems blank. Obviously, the film is about grief. I've experienced this emotion. Grief can make you wail and can close you from the world. Unfortunately, Esumi does not keep us interested.
First husband Ikuo played by Tadanobu Asano who won the Best Actor prize from the Venice International Film Festival in 2003 for another very boring film, Last Life in the Universe, adds some life as the husband. Why he dallies on the train tracks is a mystery. I thought he must have been wearing an I-pod or a Walkman back in 1995. But no! We're expected to believe that a dad with a three-month old is so depressed that he shows no signs of it and then plays splatter with the railroad train. The film really is unexplained and does not make sense.
Goki Kashiyama is very good as the son Yuichi. Taketoshi Naito who was in "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence," plays Tamio, Yukimo's second husband. They cavort and have some fun. Much of it is in the dark. This film won Best Cinematography for Masao Nakabori at the 1995 Venice Film Festival. There are nice sequences on the beach. The funeral procession on the beach is impressive and is also extremely long. In the end, "Illusory Light" is an illusory film. I'm happy for those for whom it has captured their imaginations. For me, I hope that I will now recall the film so that I never have to sit through it again. Taxi!
DVD Review: "The Sea's Quite Loud" ~ Longing For Yesterday, Contentment With Today
Summary: 5 Stars
Note: The "Product Details" information is incorrect. The film is presented in Japanese with English subtitles.
Synopsis: How does one cope with the suicide of a loved one? Such is the case with Yumiko (Makiko Esumi) leaving her with a three month old son and a myriad of unanswered questions. Yumiko is given a second chance for happiness with a new husband at a new location in a scenic oceanfront community away from the people and places of the past. Unfortunately memories are not so easily left behind. As thoughts of her first husband continue to return to her mind just as the ebb and flow of the ocean returns to the shore she must come to grips with lifes' uncertainties and learn to accept the unacceptable.
Critique: Kore-eda Hirokazu's '97 film `Maborosi' ("a strange light far out to sea") is a subtle, gentle flowing study in light and shadow, loss and fulfillment, life and death. Makiko Esumi is pure poetry in the lead role as the grieving Yumiko gliding silently and elegantly in and out of the shadows like a beautiful apparition. Accompanied by a traditional ethnic soundtrack, many times only a guiet melody of a piano `Maborosi' definitely creates a somber atmosphere that the viewer should be aware of. If you're not in the appropriate mood you won't last long. However if you're in the right mood for restrained, detached melancholy as only the Japanese can do, here it is.
Description of Maborosi
Hirokazu Kore-eda's haunting, graceful Japanese film features a concentrated and powerfully reserved performance by Makiko Esumi as Yumiko, a young woman whose life is defined by the death and disappearance of her loved ones. As a child, she witnessed her grandmother's walking away from her family; as an adult, she must face the fact that her husband has committed suicide.Impeccably lit and framed, this self-consciously classical first feature blends characteristics of two of the great Japanese masters: a sensitive portrait of a woman's suffering is reminiscent of Mikio Naruse and a serene, minimalist style is suggestive of Yasujiro Ozu. At times, Kore-eda seems to be trudging too dutifully in the path of his illustrious predecessors, and there is little in the film that could be qualified as original. Yet Maborosi remains convincing in its subtle, sustained moods and the quiet confidence of its approach. --Dave Kehr
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