Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by tinear (A) on April 07, 2006 at 11:15:53

frames his films as carefully as a master photographer does a still shot, crafts a story of tragedy and, unltimately, peaceful acceptance.
A beautiful young woman loses two people close to her and, after an extended period of mourning, marries a man who lives in a remote part of the Japanese coast.
The film is almost silent: instead of having the characters speak their feelings, the lighting, coloring, duration, composition, and objects of the scenes "speak" to the viewer.
Koreeda obviously has strongly been influenced by Antonioni and Ozu, though his art never appears derivative. Koreeda's films appear to be told from the point of view of a disinterested god.
This film won many awards though I find it inferior to his two works which followed it, "Nobody Knows" and "After Life."
But to compare a work as fine as this to another is almost criminal: it is a very fine film.