aldente wrote:I am writing this from Germany and the Cherry Blossoms Doris Dörrie movie I did not see (the trailer though, thanks to the input Sixstrings).
It's just one of my favorite movies. It's got all the plot elements needed for a good solid story, namely that the protagonist suffers, and has a transformative change and by the end of the story is 180 degrees different from where he began at the beginning of the story.
And good acting, and direction, and a travel adventure from Germany to Japan, you put all that together and that's a good movie.
The protagonist works for a water utility. He eats an apple and a sandwich for lunch every day, that his wife packs. He goes to work, does the same exact thing, every day for 30 years or whatever. He's *boring*. Does not step outside his comfort zone, won't do new things.
His wife had some dreams but gave them up. She got into Japanese butoh dancing at one point, and the protagonist dismisses that as silly stuff and wants nothing to do with it.
So one day, the wife is called in by the husband's doctors. They tell her he's got cancer and eight months to live. So then she doesn't tell him, she takes some time to soak that in and deal with it. And he just keeps going to work every day, eating his apple a day and sandwich and pushing papers.
She talks about taking a vacation (she knows he's dying, he doesn't), maybe to Japan. He says no to that, too adventurous, but they wind up going up to baltics for beach holiday or whatever that coast is up north in Europe.
So while on holiday, the wife dies! Unexpectedly, in her sleep.
She's the only one that knew he had cancer, she hadn't told anyone else yet. So now he goes through the process of the funeral and grieving, and he doesn't even know he's only got months to live.
But all that isn't the point of the story. It's a story about grief, losing a spouse or loved one, and how devastating that is, and transformation that comes from that and how you aren't the same after.
So -- the protagonist retires on the spot. No more doing the same thing every day, apple and sandwich a day, punching the clock. Now that she is gone, the husband feels bad he never did take her to Japan. And questions if he ever knew her, at all. He packs her clothes up in suitcases, and he heads off to Japan -- the first adventurous thing this man ever did in his life.
They actually have a son working in Japan, so he stays with the son. But he's been as distant with his kids all these years too, and he's a bit of a nuisance.
Then one day, wandering around a park, he meets a Japanese gril doing butoh dancing (what his wife liked so much, along with her Japanese books and always wanting to see Mt. Fuji but she never got to).
They have a nice quirky little friendship. She lost her mother the year before. So anyhow, he finally goes to Mt. Fuji and rents a lake house type of thing.
One of the final scenes of the movie is him putting on the butoh dancing makeup, and his wife's negilige and robe (sounds weird, but if you have experienced death or know those who have then you know how that is.. my grandpa kept my grandma's clothes for the rest of his life. Nobody could touch them.)
He does the butoh dancing, on the lake by Mt. Fuji. So there is the 180 degree change in this character -- at the start of the movie, he couldn't even stand to sit with his wife and watch a butoh dance in Germany that she wanted to see. And now here he is butoh dancing with japanese makeup on.
Here's that scene (I don't think this whole movie is on youtube). His wife is dancing with him, in his imagination:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imqoVKiTRfcAnd then he collapses, dead, there on the lake by Mt. Fuji.
Here's the scene where he meets the Japanese girl, and she explains butoh dancing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43moMzphGG8
