The sea, by turns calm and angry, mirrors the hearts of the young protagonists, who must accept life’s vulnerabilities in Kawase’s poetic piece, shot largely on the southern Japanese island of Amami Oshima.
Kawase’s naturalistic and graceful filmmaking is there for all to see, but she doesn’t quite pull off successfully an oddly-structured work about the sometimes fateful circumstances surrounding mothers and babies.
There’s a certain indescribable sense of tranquility and ‘silence’ to this beautiful melancholic work that is as much about grief as it is about the end of mourning.
Eternality Tan 