Program Note
One summer afternoon, Yoshiko received a phone call while she was having meaningless sex with her boyfriend. She hears her grandfather passed away and felt guilty for some reason. The family decided to gather because of the passing of their grandfather, they had not gathered together in a long time. They are preoccupied with their grandfather’s funeral and seeming like a normal close family, that they cannot feel overly sad that their grandfather passed away. In the process, the circumstances of each family member are revealed. Yoshiko’s father is unemployed and her uncle is divorced because of his alcohol problem. Yoshiko’s cousin is a Hikikomori, her grandmother has dementia and cannot recognize that her husband is dead. One of family member said, “Hey, let’s get through the funeral... And pretend like we’re a happy family.” Can they achieve their goal? This is the debut film of Morigaki Yukihiro, who is a famous commercial and music videos director. It seems to have been influenced much by The Funeral (1984) of Itami Juzo, one of the director’s favorite works. It is said that funerals for Japanese people have a strange power to summon their memories beyond mere mourning. In this movie, the funeral serves as a switch for exploding the emotions of the characters. This film is sad, funny, painful, warm, and a story about family. They are full of humor and pathos, just like the work of life tangled with despair and hope. (KIM Hyun-min