Several years after the apparent suicide of her husband, Yumiko accepts an arranged marriage and moves with her young son to a small seaside village. She’s immediately embraced by the close-knit community and life seems to resume for her, but the past doesn’t stay the past as small reminders reopen old questions and wounds. Koreeda sustains a delicate balance between light and shadow in a film about the fragility of the healing process. (35mm)
~ Presented as part of "Hirokazu Koreeda: Cinema from the Outside In"
A film of astonishing beauty and sadness.
- Roget Ebert, Chicago Sun Times
Exquisitely beautiful... One breathtaking shot after another.
- Stephen Holden, The New York Times
A profoundly affecting meditation on loss... echoes the influence of Japanese masters Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu.
- Scott Tobias, A.V. Club
Maborosi emerged from Koreeda’s skilful hands a confidently realised drama that marked its director as a formal master of the medium.
- Joseph Sgammato, Senses of Cinema
Koreeda’s extraordinary first narrative feature bears signs of his previous work in documentary—a patient eye for lighting and timing, a knack for framing resonate spaces and sounds—while moving uncommonly ahead, fashioning a lyrical cinema of love, loss, and the sublime.
- Jeremy Polacek, Brooklyn Magazine
(Available to download after screening date)