Maborosi

Starring:Makiko Esumi, Takashi NaitÃ´, Tadanobu Asano, Gohki Kashiyama, Naomi Watanabe, Midori Kiuchi, Akira Emoto, Mutsuko Sakura, Hidekazu Akai, Hiromi Ichida, Minori Terada, Ren Osugi, Kikuko Hashimoto, Shuichi Harada, Takashi Inoue, Sayaka Yoshino
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Studio: New Yorker Video
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Hirokazu Kore-eda's haunting, graceful Japanese film features a concentrated and powerfully reserved performance by Makiko Esumi as Yumiko, a young woman whose life is defined by the death and disappearance of her loved ones. As a child, she witnessed her grandmother's walking away from her family; as an adult, she must face the fact that her husband has committed suicide.

Amazon.com

Hirokazu Kore-eda's haunting, graceful Japanese film features a concentrated and powerfully reserved performance by Makiko Esumi as Yumiko, a young woman whose life is defined by the death and disappearance of her loved ones. As a child, she witnessed her grandmother's walking away from her family; as an adult, she must face the fact that her husband has committed suicide.

Customer Reviews:

"The Unspeakables".......2007-03-26

A lot of what is "not" said is what is profound in this film.

No one speaks of it out in the open, but in Japan, still today, there are these people in these places called "Bu-Ra-Ku" who live outside of the rest of the world. They were cast off there because their ancestors back in the Feudal era did something to disrespect the royalty/lord or committed inhumane crimes. These crimes were considered so bad that their families and distant offsprings were also cursed for eternity.

The main character and her sweetheart (husband) lived in one of those places in the city of Osaka. She was oblivious and just happy there. That life was all she new. She had her best friend, her family, and now the new baby. He was not so happy on the other hand. You see, in Japan they still have "The Black Book" and Corporations/Schools still use them. Chriminals and inhabitants of "Bu-Ra-Ku" are on this list. So although he was smart and capable, he could only get a low-paying, suited-for-Bu-Ra-Ku jobs. I think maybe that's why he was so drawn to "Maboroshi" lights out on the ocean and went chasing for it. And maybe, the main character's grandmother who probably married into this poverty left to go die in her home land in Shikoku Island because she just wanted to escape from there and go home in her last days.

People (actors) and the personified beauty/nature in this story act out their parts so perfectly, especially the main character. Her sadness is overwhelming but at the same time her hopefulness and innocence shines through like a bright beacon.

I could not stop crying and sobbing all the way through this film when I first watched it. And now it has become my own bitter-sweet memory.

Interesting Film, Yet Missing Something!.......2007-01-07

I understand that this film recieved many awards and praise when it was released 10 years ago. However, I did not find this film to be as great as many other reviewers did. The film was acclaimed as one of the finest Japanese films of the decade when it was released; yet the film itself is laborous. I also did not think that the cinematography was that great as some of the other reviewers did also. The film is not a bad dramatic film, in regards to the grief that Yumiko (Makiko Esumi) is going through, however, the way in which this grief was treated seemed to take on a rather strange and quirky life of its own.

I love Japanese films, and have seen many great dramatic films of Japanese cinema, but this was not one of them. Some of the adjectives that have been thrown at this film by critics such as "Exquisite, breathtaking, stunning, striking, powerful, and mesmerizing to name just a few, I think were a little overboard. I don't think this is a bad film by any measure, but I also don't think that this is a great film either. The film does take patience to view, which is fine with me. I like films that explore the human condition, and grief is definitely a major one we all go through in life. I bought this film years ago, and did not particularly think it was great at the time.

Therefore, since it had been awhile since I last viewed the film, I thought I would give it another look. However, I did not find much in the film which would allow me to grade the film any higher. I thought the film had a great beginning: where the young Yumiko is trying to stop her grandmother from leaving Osaka, and going back to Shikuku to die. So I understood where director Kore-eda Hirokazu was coming from in terms of death, dying, loss, and grief. A common theme in his films. Yet, the film did not seem to take me anywhere after the beginning, and especially with the loss of Yumiko's husband. I recommend that you view the film as we all have our own tastes in films. Maybe there is something that you will come away with in the film.

Deeply Moving, Elegant, and Beautiful .......2006-08-15

The cinematography gives this film more depth and meaning with the medium and long shots of events as they unfold in the lives of a Japanese couple ... Yumiko, her husband, and 3 month old son live in a small apartment in Osaka, evidently very much in love. We are privileged to view their lives in its elegant simplicity. Her husband bicycles to work at a factory nearby. Yumiko and he bicycle together to a nearby restaurant for coffee. Yumiko is haunted by a past event where her grandmother leaves the family to die in her own village ... It was her last wish.

Sadly, Yumiko gets a knock on the door, as several police officers ask about her husband and his job. She is accompanied to the police station where she is presented his belongings. There she is told, he walked in front of an oncoming train, despite its warnings, he kept on walking ... an apparent suicide. She is discouraged from viewing what is left of his body. She is distaught and receives help from a neighbor and her mother ... As time passes, four years go by, and a kindly neighbor becomes match-maker, as her son and she board a train to northern Japan to a small fishing village.

Yumiko partakes of a wedding celebration with her new husband, a haunting beautiful ballad is sung by a male guest as the wedding guests clap out the rhythm. Her new life begins ... The stark beauty of the mountain scenery, the shore, the village, and ocean are superbly filmed. Yumiko's son and stepdaughter explore the coast in breath-taking scenery ... Yumiko is enculturated into the lifestyle of the village. During one haunting scene, a group of villagers walk along a road to the sea coast ... There is a bonfire which could be a funeral pyre for someone. Yumiko is met by her husband as she sobs out her questions, why did he kill himself, what made him do it? Her second husband tells a story about the beguiling nature of the ocean which also calls to fishermen, when they are out fishing alone ... It is the nature of life to sometimes call some people back to the "maborosi" ("the light")... Erika Borsos [pepper flower]

Feeling painful loss is in this movie........2006-04-29

A maborosi is a beckoning light that the sea lulls sailors to their doom with. Yumiko's husband was lulled, not at sea but on the train tracks...
There is nothing American about this movie. The rythm is very, very slow, the culture different. Makiko Esumi is mesmerizing as the bereaved young wife Yumiko.
The slowness of the action puts the sense of loss at the painfull centre of everything, like something you just can't avoid. In time, the pain lifts, and Yumiko lives again. How very much like real life.

boring, overrated.......2005-04-17

I never saw this film in the theater, so I can't be completely sure that this is how it's supposed to look. But, assuming that the DVD transfer is accurate, I find all the praise for Kore-eda's "painterly" visuals completely undeserved. The film is shot entirely with natural light; so, in the daytime indoor scenes, the glare from windows and doorways blots out or silhouettes everything; and in the nightime indoor scenes, everything is murky and underexposed. It all looks horribly amateurish. The outdooor scenes come off somewhat better, but slightly grainy overall, almost as if they had been shot on a digital camera.

Cinematography (and possible bad transfer) aside, there's also the matter of Kore-eda's excessively static direction. I can appreciate the still, quiet camera work of Ozu or Jarmusch, but Kore-eda takes this style and pushes it to ridiculous lengths. His camera NEVER moves, not even for an occasional cut or panning or tracking shot. It just sits there, dull and inert, while the scenes drag on and on and then abruptly end, almost arbitrarily. I guess this technique is supposed to impart a contemplative effect to a scene, but again, it just seems amateurish.

The performance by fashion-model-turned-actress Makiko Esumi, as the grieving young widow Yumiko, reflects the director's numb, soporific visual style. Instead of being quietly torn by grief, she comes across as merely affectless. Maybe the director wanted to use a zombie-like non-actress and comatose camera work to convey the numbness of grief, but the result is far from edifying or moving or even interesting. The ultimate effect of this movie is only stupefying boredom.

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