You're not alone

One of my memorable trip to The Red River Gorge, KY was with Jenny and Endo. It was 5-hour driving, filled up with spontaneous jokes, twitzzlers, coffee, stops at "weird" fancy restaurants and Michael Jackson songs. I will remember that trip as I will remember Michael Jackson as a true entertainer. And I feel like too often we wait until someone passes to truly celebrate his/her impacts. Rest in peace.

Cherry Blossoms - Hanami

This film definitely reminds me of the only Yasujiro Ozu's work I have seen, Tokyo Story, and of course a little bit of Rabun. It's a kind of film that moves 'slowly' so that I, personally, would pay attention to every little details in the film that blended mostly in delicate metaphors - flies, ducks, cherry blossoms, apart from a very compelling storytelling. And I believe that Doris Dorrie has had great thoughts on every single materials she presented in this piece.

It hurts me so much watching this piece that it gives me more reasons to love my parents. When I realized mak's devotion to abah, I thought it was merely an obligated responsibility. My childhood memories were full of hatred towards abah after what he had done to mak and it was not just me, but also my siblings. And not until couple months before I came to the States that I fully understood my confusion of mak's devotion (Yeah, another childhood pshychological trauma. Nothing much to complain about). Trudi and Rudi's love shows me exactly what I need to see as a son and a future partner to a soul.

I miss you, mak, abah.

Okuribito - Death is not the end of humanity

It could be told from most of my entries that I'm amateurishly sentimental (speaking about professional, Yasmin Ahmad owned it). Okuribito (Departures) definitely deepened my understanding of this human's emotion, in coping with life. It does not really have mind-twisted-tricky plots because its events unravel predictably, but the film is profoundly affecting, well-written moving story, rich characters and superlative acting - Kudos to Yojiro Takita.


The fact that it has expected plots does not take away all the credits from other attributes of the movie. Kundo Kayama's screenplay has made the film very well-paced. I'm amazed by his way of putting real-life witty gist in every encoffing ceremonies.

In a scene, in the office, when it's snowing over Christmas outside, Sasaki, Yuriko and Daigo are enjoying fried chicken with wines. And Daigo grabs his old cello to play a song requested by Yuriko.

Daigo - Well what should I play?
Sasaki - Let's see.. something Christmasy
Daigo - Uh..will different religions bother you?
Sasaki - Don't worry. Buddism, Christian, Islam, Hindu. We handle all religions here.
Daigo - Then, for the Holy Night.

And there it goes the best version of Holy Night I've ever heard. This is another part that made me drown into the film, the music composed by Joe Hisaishi. Soundtracks have been my attentions in watching movies since Casablanca and I believe Hisaishi has composed and placed ALL the soundtracks well in the film. It was very moving piece for me. (And guess what..I just bought its original soundtracks!)

Regarding the acting, personally, I found it is hard to pull off Daigo Kobayashi character portrayed by Masahiro Motoki as I've been told by my acting mentor to put myself in actors shoes when I watch acting performances. Interconnected emotionally, Daigo and I have a common painful history except that he is healed, sadly with a heart-wrenching lost. Overall, I found that the actors never overplay, never spell out what can be said in a glance or a shrug, communicate great passion very quietly, as I wish Daigo's extremely cheerful wife, Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) was real.

As one of the runners for Best Foreign Language Film along with Waltz With Bashir, Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex and The Class, Departures definitely surprized lot of critics. From my perspective after watching all the films running for the title, I think Departures deserved the Oscar.

Death may be the termination of a life, but it's not the end of humanity.