Kore-eda Hirokazu's first feature Maborosi is so lovely. It's a sad meditation on loss and learning to live with it, and I loved it, obviously. I love Kor-eda so much. I thought this movie was rather cold for most of its running time – it's shot in long shot for most of its running time; there are very few close-ups and we spend so much time so far away from these characters. But as it ended I burst into tears and had trouble stopping crying as my friends started talking about the movie. It's a lovely movie, and maybe one of the reasons I loved it is that it feels very Ozu. It's Kore-eda's first feature, and my friend Malia suggested that perhaps he was referencing Ozu a lot here, as he figured out his own style. There is no one better to imitate, so I think this makes perfect sense.
The title in Japanese, incidentally, means something like a trick of the light. I watched this with my unseen movie club. I have no idea how we got ahold of it.
