Review contains spoilers!
This film - for my money the best so far in Kore-eda's rich career - deals with death and the effect it has on those that the deceased leaves behind. The story follows a young woman named Yumiko, who lives in Osaka with her husband Ikuo and their infant son Yuichi. Yumiko is haunted by a traumatic experience in her childhood - as a young girl, tasked with watching over her senile grandmother, she is careless and lets the old woman wander off. Her grandmother is never seen again, and Yumiko believes that she died soon after wandering off, and that she is responsible for the old woman's death.
Yumiko and Ikuo have a great relationship - they love each other dearly and both seem very happy. However, one day Ikuo is found dead - he was walking on train tracks and was run over in what appears to be a suicide. Yumiko is completely devastated by her husband's death and confused by his manner of passing. She falls into depression.
A few years later, Yumiko's aunt acts as match-maker, finding a new husband for her niece. This man, whose name is Tamio, is a widower and father of a young daughter who lives in a small fishing village on the western coast of Honshû. Eager to escape the oppressive city life, and all the memories of Ikuo that it carries, Yumiko moves with him to the house he shares with his father and daughter in the fishing village.
Yumiko and Tamio's relationship is distant at first, but they soon learn to rely on and confide in each other. Yumiko forms a connection with her father-in-law and with an elderly fisherwoman who lives in town. However, she's still unable to escape thoughts of her husband's inexplicable suicide. Meanwhile, her son and her stepdaughter become close friends and spend the days playing in the fields and lakes near the village.
One evening her new husband comes home drunk, and he gets into an argument with Yumiko. She confesses that she cannot understand the feelings she's experiencing regarding her husband's death, and he says that he feels the same regarding his wife's.
Some time later, Yumiko travels to the seaside and sees a funeral procession carrying a body to a pyre by the shore. She follows them, drawn to the strange ceremony. After the procession is gone, she lingers at the funeral pyre until sunset, when Tamio comes to find her. She breaks down, crying out that all she wants to know is why her husband killed himself. Tamio replies that his father used to see "maboroshi no hikari" (illusions of light - 'will-o-wisps') at sea when he was fishing, and that perhaps Ikuo was drawn to the tracks, and to death, by some force that cannot be explained or accounted for.
A few days later, Yumiko sits with her father-in-law on the deck of the house. He comments on the weather - 'It's getting warmer, isn't it?'. She agrees.
This film taps into the kind of wabi-sabi aesthetic primarily associated with Ozu, and I think this picture stands up to the best works in that director's canon. As with Ozu, there is emotional turmoil bubbling under the surface of politesse, and it breaks through rarely but with great emotional impact - in the scene where Tamio is drunk, and in the scene at the funeral pyre. And, as with Ozu, immense emotional depth is conveyed with the simplest words - 'It's getting warmer, isn't it?'
"Maboroshi no Hikari" is, using Herr-Schreck's definition, a perfect example of mise-en-scene. The cinematography itself (some of the best and most beautiful I've ever seen) tells the story as clearly as the actors and the script do. Like Ozu, the camera is normally static, but unlike Ozu shots are captured at a variety of angles, including several notable (and incredibly beautiful) crane and vista shots.
In Osaka, and especially after Ikuo's death, the camera seems preoccupied with the idea of tunnels - often we are facing down a narrow street lined with tall buildings, down a hallway or even down a tunnel itself. The use of natural light gives the scenes in the city a feeling of melancholy. Indeed, every aspect of the visuals reflects Yumiko's inner emotional state - just as she is trapped by grief and confusion, our view of the film is trapped in tunnels, passages and alleys.
When we arrive at the fishing village, this effect is not as prevalent but still definitely noticeable. We see the fishing village shot from an angle that makes the bay enclosing it seem almost cagelike.
The style of the cinematography changes when we entire the p.o.v. of another character - in the most notable case, Yuichi and his stepsister. We see them play in several different locations - including a tunnel, but in this case there's a difference. We are facing the tunnel mouth, beyond which there is an almost heavenly vision of lush, brilliantly green wilderness. As the children move towards this, we see a contrast between the wide-open world of their imagination and the cage-like world of Yumiko and the other adults.
This contrast is repeated in another, absolutely stunning image - one where the children play by the side of a pond.
Again we see the world of the children and their imagination, and the world of the adults and their pain, placed side by side. The "real world", the grown-up world - the top half of this image - is almost completely obscured by a dark, dense forest. But Yuichi and his stepsister are reflected in the pond, which looks as blue and as open as the sky itself. "Maboroshi no Hikari" is full of images of similarly breathtaking beauty.
The film is shot primarily in longshot, with several medium shots and only one close-up to be found. This, again, emphasizes Yumiko's disconnect from life following her husband's death, and the distance she feels from her new husband.
This approach makes the performances by Esumi Makiko (who plays Yumiko) and the other actors quite interesting. They can't chew the scenery in close-up, so they must resort to expressing their characters' emotions in key scenes through vocalization. Esumi's line readings in the drunken argument scene and in the scene at the funeral pyre are heartbreaking, shattering and completely illuminating.
The beauty and emotional power of this film really can't be expressed through words. It is a shame that this film isn't more widely praised - perhaps it is just underseen compared to some of Korêda's later work (such as After Life and Nobody Knows). But it is an essential film in his canon, an essential film of the 90s and an essential film of both Japanese and world cinema. If you have ever lost someone close to you, this is a must-see: it is perhaps the best, most powerful and most satisfying film about grief and healing that has ever been made.
I'd love to hear thoughts from those who have seen it, and I hope my review spurs more people to see this astonishing film
