Maborosi

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful and beautiful
Review: A sad, quiet film about a young woman whose experience of death, such as the mysterious suicide of her husband, has left her with a deep, frightening stillness in her soul. She seems imbued with a sense that human lives are transient things and that there is something within us that draws us toward our own destruction like moths to a flame. She is unable to form warm human connections or escape the pull of the past.

This film is beautifully composed. Director Hirokazu Kore-eda's camera often lingers on inanimate objects or views the characters from a distance, as if to contrast the impermanence of human existence with the hard, eternal presence of the universe. Many viewers will be put off by the slow pace.

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful and beautiful
Review: A sad, quiet film about a young woman whose experience of death, such as the mysterious suicide of her husband, has left her with a deep, frightening stillness in her soul. She seems imbued with a sense that human lives are transient things and that there is something within us that draws us toward our own destruction like moths to a flame. She is unable to form warm human connections or escape the pull of the past.

This film is beautifully composed. Director Hirokazu Kore-eda's camera often lingers on inanimate objects or views the characters from a distance, as if to contrast the impermanence of human existence with the hard, eternal presence of the universe. Many viewers will be put off by the slow pace.

Rating:
Summary: TERRIBLE..TERRIBLE BORING MOVIE!
Review: I am a lover of Japanese movies. I even purchased a masterpiece (Sadakan No. 8) for $50 for a VHS. I have a huge collection of Japanese jems. So I know what I'm talking about. Heck I'm even Japanese myself :-)

But let me tell you--MABOROSI must mean MAJOR BORING..This movie can be condensed easily into 30 minutes and probably be still too boring. Yumiko is traumatized as a kid as grandma says she wants to go away and die...please stop you are too young to die..but grandma leaves anyway and Yumiko dreams about this repeatedly. Yumiko has a hubby and kid and hubby commits suicide. She mops throughout the movie from start to finish. She wears nothing but black and rarely smiles and sustains a flat affect. A totally unrealistic movie; in real life, Yumiko would have to worry about getting a job and pay bills rather than worrying about her psychological traumas because she has a kid to take care of. (her husband was some kind of laborer.)

THE MOVIE IS DREADFULLY BORING. BORING. BORING. BORING. It goes into trivial daily life and irrelevant conversations and becomes the whole of the movie with very little plot. It goes on and on and on making you sleepy sleepy sleepy...

Masterpiece--HOW ON EARTH????? It's another example how winning an international film prize does not necessarily mean it is good.

Now if you have problems with insomnia or need a sleep remedy-please by all means purchase this. It's hard to follow only because it puts you to sleep sooo well! I'm not exaggerating.

If you decide to purchase this BORING movie, and believe the hype of the critics as it is highly overrated, well, I warned you.

Thank you.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, haunting and puzzling
Review: I did enjoy this film, for its focus on the beauty of the Japanese landscape and the potential beauty of life, despite loss. Its relevance to Buddhist culture is undeniable. But for all the Japanese films and Chinese films I've viewed (and collected) over the years, I remain puzzled why the director chose to avoid any closeups of any of the main characters. In this case, the protagonist (who many of us have seen in several Japanese TV drama series) has an unusally expressive face and voice. These were buried in shadow or obscured by distance for most of the film, giving the production a clear distance from the viewer, both from physical and emotional perspectives. This must be viewed several times before the benefit is realized, I think.

Rating:
Summary: the psychology of loss
Review: I first watched Kore-eda's film several years ago and was left with mixed emotions. Technically, I felt that the film was a masterwork, with some of the most stunningly composed and beautifully spare frames I had seen since Zhang Yimou's masterpiece, "Raise the Red Lantern." However, emotionally I felt distant from the characters, including the grieving widow, Yumiko, and I blamed the same highly-disciplined technical approach that I admired for this.

I have since re-watched the film after some difficult personal years in which I struggled with an almost immobilizing depression, and I've come to the realization that, more so than most films, "Maborosi" is a work that one can only truly appreciate and love if one has a direct personal connection to the type of suffering that Yumiko faces. And to me, this film is not simply about coping with the loss of a loved one or even the fear of abandonment. For me, this is a film that explores the different faces of depression, whether it be clinical - meaning, without any objectively attributable motivating factor (as is evidently the case with Yumiko's first husband, Ikuo) - or situational (such as what Yumiko deals with from feeling repeatedly "abandoned" by key figures in her life).

What I was most struck with by "Maborosi" was the incredibly sensitive and subtle ways in which Kore-eda examines the frustration, devastating grief, and even anger that Yumiko feels as she struggles to come to terms with Ikuo's apparently inexplicable suicide. And in fact, when suicidal people think of the loved ones that they will be leaving behind, it is precisely the type of confused suffering and self-doubt that Yumiko experiences that we know will be the fate of our friends and family members. That Kore-eda is able to capture this truth is a testament to his remarkable insight into humanity and the complex psychology of loss. In this sense, he has much in common with Canadian director Atom Egoyan, whose "The Sweet Hereafter" is one of the most accomplished cinematic explorations of this type of subject matter.

I can now easily say that "Maborosi" is one of my very favorite films. Kore-eda has said that he chose the actress Makiko Esumi to play Yumiko because of the power behind her eyes. And, indeed, that one lingering moment when Yumiko gazes directly into the camera is one of the most haunting in the film, for we feel as if we are staring straight down into this young woman's soul, into the deep well of strength that shines through the raw pain and confusion. Somehow, we know long before the peaceful closing scene that she will make it out of this just fine.

This film has been called a "visual tone poem" of sorts, and Kore-eda's mastery of visual composition just serves to illustrate that he is one of a select group of filmmakers, following the tradition of masters like Bergman, Fellini, Kubrick, and Malick, who know how to use the medium to its fullest potential. When the image can tell the story with as much subtlety and quiet power as is on display in this film, words are truly unnecessary. "Maborosi" is a masterwork of the highest order.

Rating:
Summary: I just couldn't get into it . . .
Review: I love Japanese and Chinese movies, so I had high expectations for this one. But it was . . . too slow. Not in a good way. I'm used to slow movies, but this was too inert.

I understand the main character's grief--we all know what it's like to lose a loved one to death or splitting apart, and how long it takes to recover. The movie did a good job of accentuating that, but the movie is just too uneventful, even for a foreign movie.

Still good, though.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful but confusing
Review: I picked up Maborosi thinking it was another Japanese film I'd seen mentioned, so had no idea what to expect. And, with no buzz to prepare me, I still had little idea what was going on until near the very end.

Since there is little dialog, one is left to interpret a series of lengthy set shots. Many go on so long one expects they have Significance-with-a-capital-S to those imbued with Japanese culture, but I was left screaming "what does 5 minutes of washing stairs Mean?"

This is compounded by the director's conscious choice to film primarily with the characters at extreme distance or in heavy shadow. At the front row of a regular theatre this may fly, but on a home screen, even watching closely, I was often at a loss to figure out which character I was watching, much less detect subtle nuances of expression or action. Even watching it 2 or 3 times, I was still not sure what happened at the end of the stair scrubbing scene. Given that the director's background is in television, this is surprising, or perhaps he just went overboard with the freedom of a new medium.

The film is visually beautiful, even in the scenes where the characters are almost hidden, and the snapshots of traditional/rural Japanese life and material culture are fascinating. But the almost total lack of moving shots seems like a little too cute of a restriction of vocabulary. As one reviewer said, like a slide show rather than cinema.

I also felt a lack of context, much of it I'm sure because I'm not Japanese nor deeply familiar with the culture. But part of a director's work must surely be to create context. For instance, from the commentary on the DVD, I gather that the setting was shortly post-WWII, but though subtle cues of dress or automobile or song may have shown this, or simply the lack of high tech city life, it was not at all clear to this viewer until watching that commentary after the film. And this seems to have been an important point in the director's mind.

I do, however, plan to view the DVD again before returning it, now that I know what it's supposed to be about :-).

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful but confusing
Review: I picked up Maborosi thinking it was another Japanese film I'd seen mentioned, so had no idea what to expect. And, with no buzz to prepare me, I still had little idea what was going on until near the very end.

Since there is little dialog, one is left to interpret a series of lengthy set shots. Many go on so long one expects they have Significance-with-a-capital-S to those imbued with Japanese culture, but I was left screaming "what does 5 minutes of washing stairs Mean?"

This is compounded by the director's conscious choice to film primarily with the characters at extreme distance or in heavy shadow. At the front row of a regular theatre this may fly, but on a home screen, even watching closely, I was often at a loss to figure out which character I was watching, much less detect subtle nuances of expression or action. Even watching it 2 or 3 times, I was still not sure what happened at the end of the stair scrubbing scene. Given that the director's background is in television, this is surprising, or perhaps he just went overboard with the freedom of a new medium.

The film is visually beautiful, even in the scenes where the characters are almost hidden, and the snapshots of traditional/rural Japanese life and material culture are fascinating. But the almost total lack of moving shots seems like a little too cute of a restriction of vocabulary. As one reviewer said, like a slide show rather than cinema.

I also felt a lack of context, much of it I'm sure because I'm not Japanese nor deeply familiar with the culture. But part of a director's work must surely be to create context. For instance, from the commentary on the DVD, I gather that the setting was shortly post-WWII, but though subtle cues of dress or automobile or song may have shown this, or simply the lack of high tech city life, it was not at all clear to this viewer until watching that commentary after the film. And this seems to have been an important point in the director's mind.

I do, however, plan to view the DVD again before returning it, now that I know what it's supposed to be about :-).

Rating:
Summary: DVD has a bad transfer
Review: I saw the movie last night. Just wanted to warn people that the DVD has a bad transfer. It made it almost unwatchable for me.

Rating:
Summary: Dull
Review: I thought I was watching a documentary, not a film
I guess I should appreciate the movie for its artistiuc merit but there are certain things about it that bothered me.
For instance the lack of dialogue, lighting and camera shots made it very difficult for me to keep my eyes open.
At one point in the film, for some reason the widow is depicted cleaning stair steps for a good 1-2 minutes. Scenes like that spoiled the movie for me by making it very dull.
Its not that I'm some spoiled American who only likes watching action movies.
If you are looking to view a more interesting film try "Eel" or "Kikujiro"
I just don't feel that this movie is for everyone. It certainly was not for me.