AKA Mogari no mori
Directed by
Naomi Kawase
Writing credits
Naomi Kawase
Writing credits
Naomi Kawase
The film centers around a 70-year-old man with senile dementia who is living in an old age home in Japan. The Mourning Forest is a sensitive film tracing a senile old man's quixotic pilgrimage to his wife's grave in a forest interlocking a mystical relationship with nature. An old man with depleting memory is cared for by a young woman Machiko, a new nursing recruit, at the retirement/old age home. But her name, which has similar syllables to the name of his wife Mako, who died 33 years before, triggers a passion in him to visit her grave in a forest.
On the 33rd anniversary, according to Japanese Buddhist beliefs, the departed must travel to the land of Buddha — somewhat like the Roman Catholic Christian belief of the dead reaching heaven /hell after a stay in purgatory. The time has come for the couple to part forever unless he bids farewell soon before the anniversary.
The first part of the film introduces the viewer to the two main characters--the nurse and the nursed. Both have suffered personal loss and are grieving — the nurse has lost a child for which her husband holds her responsible; the nursed has lost his wife and evidently never remarried and keeps writing letters to his dead wife that must be "delivered." The nurse dominates the first part. We view the two figures chasing each other between rows of tea bushes, their heads clearly visible over the verdant green landscape. There is warmth of the sun. There is an allusion to life.
The second part inverses the situation. The nursed dominates the nurse. The nursed tricks the smart young woman as he trudges to his wife's grave. Whether the spot is really her grave or not is of little consequence — the act of undertaking the pilgrimage is of consequence as he has to deliver his letters to his wife before 33 years of her death are completed. The forest covers the human figures. There is cold, darkness and mystical overflowing streams that threaten hypothermia. There are definite allusions to death and regeneration. In an interview to a news agency, Kawase said "After the two enter the forest, the forest becomes the force that supports them. It watches over the two of them, sometimes gently, sometimes more strictly." The films title roughly translates to "Forest of Mogari" and at the end of the film the director states the meaning of the term "mogari." Mogari means "the time or act of mourning." Unlike "Away from Her", "Mourning forest" is a film on understanding the richer complexities of life and death. "Running water never returns to its source," says the old man Shigeki to his nurse, words of solace for a young woman to look afresh at her marriage after losing a child. "If sad things happen, you shouldn't be sad about them or fight them, but vow to make the world a better place for children still to be born. That's my message," Kawase told the Reuters news agency At the Cannes festival, director Kawase said she made Mourning Forest because "her grandmother was becoming slightly senile, and today such people are looked down upon somewhat, and pitied, forgetting that it could happen to us someday." Kawase said she hoped viewers would learn kindness and a new way of handling difficulties -- which she said could help people around the world overcome religious and cultural differences. The nurse strips off her clothes to provide warmth to her ward and protect him from hypothermia — an action that would seem unusual to Western sensibilities. There is no sex here; mere practical help in time of need. There are streams that suddenly flood as if they have a life of their own and emerge as a silent character in the film.
There is one Japanese film that is somewhat similar in spirit and content — the 1983 Cannes Golden Palm winner Shohei Imamura's "Ballad of Narayama", where an active and useful old woman is forced to make a last trip up a mountain to fulfill local traditions and her consequent interactions with younger generations in the village.
On the 33rd anniversary, according to Japanese Buddhist beliefs, the departed must travel to the land of Buddha — somewhat like the Roman Catholic Christian belief of the dead reaching heaven /hell after a stay in purgatory. The time has come for the couple to part forever unless he bids farewell soon before the anniversary.
The first part of the film introduces the viewer to the two main characters--the nurse and the nursed. Both have suffered personal loss and are grieving — the nurse has lost a child for which her husband holds her responsible; the nursed has lost his wife and evidently never remarried and keeps writing letters to his dead wife that must be "delivered." The nurse dominates the first part. We view the two figures chasing each other between rows of tea bushes, their heads clearly visible over the verdant green landscape. There is warmth of the sun. There is an allusion to life.
The second part inverses the situation. The nursed dominates the nurse. The nursed tricks the smart young woman as he trudges to his wife's grave. Whether the spot is really her grave or not is of little consequence — the act of undertaking the pilgrimage is of consequence as he has to deliver his letters to his wife before 33 years of her death are completed. The forest covers the human figures. There is cold, darkness and mystical overflowing streams that threaten hypothermia. There are definite allusions to death and regeneration. In an interview to a news agency, Kawase said "After the two enter the forest, the forest becomes the force that supports them. It watches over the two of them, sometimes gently, sometimes more strictly." The films title roughly translates to "Forest of Mogari" and at the end of the film the director states the meaning of the term "mogari." Mogari means "the time or act of mourning." Unlike "Away from Her", "Mourning forest" is a film on understanding the richer complexities of life and death. "Running water never returns to its source," says the old man Shigeki to his nurse, words of solace for a young woman to look afresh at her marriage after losing a child. "If sad things happen, you shouldn't be sad about them or fight them, but vow to make the world a better place for children still to be born. That's my message," Kawase told the Reuters news agency At the Cannes festival, director Kawase said she made Mourning Forest because "her grandmother was becoming slightly senile, and today such people are looked down upon somewhat, and pitied, forgetting that it could happen to us someday." Kawase said she hoped viewers would learn kindness and a new way of handling difficulties -- which she said could help people around the world overcome religious and cultural differences. The nurse strips off her clothes to provide warmth to her ward and protect him from hypothermia — an action that would seem unusual to Western sensibilities. There is no sex here; mere practical help in time of need. There are streams that suddenly flood as if they have a life of their own and emerge as a silent character in the film.
There is one Japanese film that is somewhat similar in spirit and content — the 1983 Cannes Golden Palm winner Shohei Imamura's "Ballad of Narayama", where an active and useful old woman is forced to make a last trip up a mountain to fulfill local traditions and her consequent interactions with younger generations in the village.
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