Adrastheus

What a beautiful mess she was.

I thought he did after he eloped with her. Though he might have not (I am not sure), but they lived and traveled together for a long time.

Most likely the novel the movie was based on was more explicit about these things but it was made somewhat clear that Kikou would sacrifice anything for kabuki. He outright told it to his daugther through his story about making a deal with the devil and Harue knew him too well from his young age, she knew she had been always just secondary to his art. In a metaphoric sense he had to sacrife all women in his life to become the master of his art, "marry" the Muse and become the perfect Onnagata. He did it even with his wife, whom he married for the sake of his carrer and only after she had left him at his lowest was he invited by the old Tanaka to his deathbed, which again metaphoricly meant he was re-admitted into the world of kabuki. It was even said the old man would leave nothing behind after his death but his art, and I think that notion mirrored the endpoint of the same process Kikou has been going through.

Sadly it was not a good movie, I really struggled to finish it.

I hope the director's cut will be released for this movie in the future. It was initially one and a half hour longer but it had to be shortened to be more consumable for moviegoers. Fortunately it still remained comprehensible and didn't felt incomplete, but I am sure the story told during it original four and half hours long runtime would have given even a better and more complete experience.

So he is the guy who played Wizard Oji-chan in Gigi's 3D debut.

I am glad Iwai Shinji didn't write that rape scene in a way that completely played out. Having watched so many of their movies I guess japanese are obsessed or aroused by rape scenes but there are movies where they are unnecessary, they don't give anything to the story. I actually forsaw its coming, when Ichijo mentioned that the guy was a pervert I already knew where this was going.

I shipped the adult Ruka and Shiomi so hard but I guess this story was not about them coming together.

I didn't mind its length, I had become completely absorbed by the story. Ruka (Kyrie) reminded me of the recently deceased street musician Sayuri who was the same age as the actress who played the character. I wonder whether Iwai Shinji was inspired by her when he wrote this story. BTW in the scenes where Aina was playing the character of the older sister she sometimes had such a sensual, dreamy, husky voice I could have fallen for that.

Powerful story about the late return of the "prodigal" daughter, who had wasted her life away, and in the end become an embittered hikokomori.

I know it is not much related to the film itself or to this site but anyway it is kinda sad that the imdb lists those three english actors as the "stars" of this movie, who only played some minor roles in it while the "stars"/main characters were clearly Lily Franky and Nishikido Ryo.

There was an interesting "hidden" answer to the central question of the movie, that is to the question Yayoi and Shun struggling with: "How can we prevent love from coming to an end?". It wasn't said out loud in words but when after Shun asked the same question of his colleague and she answered that if she did know she wouldn't have had a divorce the movie made a point of showing her meeting with her child. I guess that was the director / screenwriter personal answer added to the one the main characters found at the end (that is even if the love fades it can live in an other form towards out children).

The guy's father pissed me up with his babbling about his not being comfortable with keeping the secret of his dead son's affair from his wife. He hadn't spoken with his son since he was in elementary school still he wasn't able to let him lie in peace and her wife mourn him without digging up the past . He almost came off as a really mean guy.

What this movie shows to us doesn't make Japan seem like a third world country, at most you had some kind of illusions dashed with respect to it. There are plenty of japanese movies featuring the dregs of japanese society (and the daily struggle of them) and some other japanese movies have just as horrible mothers in them like the one you saw in this film.

It was a such a nice, moody, contemplative film, I loved it very much.

Just one thing of the many that it made me think about, but it was kind of interesting how it played with the symbol of the wind - the wind that carries someone's wishes; the wind that deformes, bends the tree under its constant blows, just like life does the same thing with everyone; and then the wind that you can lean into or just let it carry you to wherever it goes, you can just let yourself go and ride it like the seagulls... And of course it is the wind that makes the "petals dance" (the falling petals of the cherry blossom), that carries us far away from each other as time passes and forces us to say goodbye.

Japanese are masters at telling so much just through the symbols of nature.

That part was interestingly ambiguous when the teacher showed the picture of her boyfriend to the ex porn actress during the family visit and she commented that she know him from "her previous work". Now that could mean that the teacher's boyfriend was a porn actor previously or more likely the teacher broke up with that guy and hooked up with the cleaner boy and the ex porn actress didn't want to say out loud where she knew him from .

I am so glad this didn't turn into a sappy love story but, - in spite of the serious themes is tackled - it remained more of a cosy slice of life suffused with the feeling of mono no aware.

It has turned out to be way better than I thought it would after watching the trailer. The first few minutes made more sense when I rewatched them after having finished the movie, wrapping up its story nicely.

A nice little contemplative indie movie, watching it felt like breathing in the fresh morning-air. I know it is something you have to be in the mood to enjoy, but if you do it can be a very rewarding and thought inspiring experience. I am glad I happened upon it and gave it a chance.

A film about a silent struggle, the silent struggle (and not just in the literary sense) of the movie's mute main character. Watching it felt like it told the story of the silent stuggle of all of us.

In a nutshell there was a huge storm that caused a landslide which turned over the old, abandoned railroad car they were hiding in after they had made up. We see that at the end of the movie they climb out of one of the windows of the overturned railroad car under the rails, crawl through a passage as if through a birth canal (the whole scene is symbolic, it is not coincidence that they are talking about rebirth). If you realize that in the last scene the metal fence is missing which previously closed off the old railroad bridge (the "end of the line" as the kids called it) and that they should have been found by Minato's mother and their teacher who were looking for them in the same traincar previously, then the ending becomes very ambiguous and can be interpreted in two different ways (as the japanese like their stories). I leave it to you to think of what are those possible interpretations, I just say that one of them is very sad.