I enjoyed meeting Tokue (Kirin Kiki), an artist in the mode of Babette of the exquisite food movie "Babette's Feast" (1987).
The sequence in which she tutors Sentaro (Masatochi Nagase) in the subtleties of making sweet-bean paste is amazing to behold.
Tokue is a 76-year-old widow on the wane, but she maintains a lovely ability to savor cherry blossoms and other wonders of nature. She reminded me of the similarly faded but inspired heroine of "Poetry," a much stronger film from Korea (2010).
Nagase is a good-looking, middle-aged presence in the film, but I found his part to be seriously underwritten. We spend too much time watching him brooding and smoking, often, inexplicably, in the company of the sailor-suited, depressed high-school girl Wakana (Kayara Uchida). I never understood why. Ms. Uchida's part is even worse-written than Nagase's, and way too much screen time is given to her.
This film brings a sociological interest to the history of lepers in Japan, and these segments seem unnaturally spliced onto the rest of the saga.
It's too bad. Tokue is a highly unusual personality. Much, much more could have been made of her unique character.
The sequence in which she tutors Sentaro (Masatochi Nagase) in the subtleties of making sweet-bean paste is amazing to behold.
Tokue is a 76-year-old widow on the wane, but she maintains a lovely ability to savor cherry blossoms and other wonders of nature. She reminded me of the similarly faded but inspired heroine of "Poetry," a much stronger film from Korea (2010).
Nagase is a good-looking, middle-aged presence in the film, but I found his part to be seriously underwritten. We spend too much time watching him brooding and smoking, often, inexplicably, in the company of the sailor-suited, depressed high-school girl Wakana (Kayara Uchida). I never understood why. Ms. Uchida's part is even worse-written than Nagase's, and way too much screen time is given to her.
This film brings a sociological interest to the history of lepers in Japan, and these segments seem unnaturally spliced onto the rest of the saga.
It's too bad. Tokue is a highly unusual personality. Much, much more could have been made of her unique character.