Cherry Blossoms

Discovering the essence of the companion, family, friends and others is the challenge posed by the story.

The movie takes you to geographical places you might never been before, as well as into your inside and your persona.

Great to reflect while feeling lost in both places and enjoying a work of art.

You will go as far away as Tokyo and as deep inside as your more basic understanding of human beings.

The unit of the story is a family at a moment of crises.

Some may see this story as a sequence of complains. But it can also be seen as stepping stones in the road to happiness.

It stresses the relevance of how taking good care of ourselves is the beginning of taking others feelings into consideration.

Some might have the feeling of not having a complete set of tools to approximate of understanding others essence, and feel compelled to change and develop them.

In syntheses the play depicts the sharp contrast in the two faces of the coin of life the one that gets engulfed by routine and the one that consciously chose to live on the other side seeking truth in the road of simplicity.

I can't begin to describe how much this film moved me. After nearly losing my spouse, best friend and soul mate, I could relate to the crushing emotions of both Trudi and Rudi. Life stands still when you're faced with the realization of living without that person.

In 2009 my husband was diagnosed with cancer, and it crushed me. The way Trudi tried to hide her tears, how she couldn't sleep or eat, and her painful realization that each moment with him might be the last were things I experienced firsthand. I can't imagine the added of burden of trying to keep it from him and act as if nothing were wrong. I failed miserably as a strong, supportive caretaker.

Many of the things Rudi went through were similar to what I imagined my life would become if he didn't make it. One of the things that really struck me was the portrayal of how seemingly mundane, everyday events become vivid and painful reminders of what was and what you desperately wish you still had.

A beautiful movie, a work of art.

A German director Doris Dorrie's third film in her trilogy on Japan, Cherry Blossoms, is an exquisite, absorbing and deeply moving meditation on life, death, loss, loneliness and grief.

Talking about old parents with alienated and indifferent descendants, the first half of the film may remind the audience of Yasujiro Ozu's film made in 1953, Tokyo Monogatari. The six hugging-or-massage (by family members and strangers) scenes and the father's harmonious relationships with his daughter's girlfriend and a Japanese girl successfully highlight the poor relationship between the father and his children.

The second half in which the main character embarks on a reflective journey in search of traces of the deceased love captures the mood of Lost in Translation and Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles. The cultural shock experienced also makes the film distinguishable from Under the Sand.

Cherry blossoms and Mount Fuji symbolize the fleeting and unpredictable nature of life. The film delivers a message that we should treasure the people around us, pursue our dreams and enjoy life to the full so that we will have no regrets. Besides, it is also about the main character's inability to communicate with not only the dead, but also the living family members. Butoh, a Japanese dance, helps people to feel and establish connections with others. What's more, the audience can pay attention to the symbolic meaning of the drawings at the beginning of the film and the photos at the end.

The cinematographer and the composer also succeed in evoking different tones from several shooting locations in Germany and Japan. The suburbs contrast sharply with the hustle and bustle of city life. Apart from the poetic and stunning visual images and the Japanese music playing upon the audience's heartstrings, the characters are so lifelike that the audience will care about what happen to them.

On the whole, although Cherry Blossoms is a bit too long, without emotional bludgeoning or syrupy manipulation, it is a little road movie producing emotional resonance and reflective ripples in a whisper.

When her husband is diagnosed with a terminal illness, a German woman named Trudi decides it's time the both of them paid a long overdue visit to their adult children - two of whom live in Berlin and one in Japan. The catch is that the husband, Rudi, doesn't even know he's sick and neither do the kids. Thus, Trudi must live with this horrible secret while putting on a brave face for those around her. But then a different, wholly unforeseen tragedy strikes the family and the movie heads off into an entirely new and utterly unanticipated direction from where we thought it was going.

A German movie set largely in Japan, "Cherry Blossoms" is a beautiful and heartbreaking film about living for the moment and of not putting off till tomorrow what you can do today. It's also marvelously perceptive about the dynamics of parent/child relationships, especially when, as is true in this case, the parents are viewed by their self-absorbed offspring more as burdens to be endured than blessings to be cherished. The irony is that Rudi and Trudi have more in common with - and indeed are treated better by - many of the strangers and casual acquaintances they come in contact with than they are by their own children.

But the movie is also an examination of marriage and of how partners can become so entwined with one another as a couple that they lose their identities as individuals, missing out on the dreams and goals they had for their lives when they were still young and unattached. This is certainly the case for Trudi, who has harbored a lifelong desire to take up Japanese dancing, a desire that Rudi, in his selfish indifference, has pretty much squelched in her for the duration of their marriage. Such a realization of lost opportunities can lead to regrets, recriminations and despair at the end of the road, yet in the case of Rudi and Trudi, one learns that lesson a little too late - and the other just in the nick of time.

Elmer Wepper and Hannelore Elsner are magnificent as the aged couple, superbly capturing the deep-seated but often unspoken love that each spouse has for the other. A fine supporting cast, led by Maximilian Bruckner as one of their sons and Aya Irizuki as a young street artist who befriends Rudi in his time of greatest need, adds to the movie's richness. Another crucial element in the emotional force of the movie is the richly elegiac score by Claus Bantzer.

The glory of this exquisitely realized and profoundly moving film is its willingness to grapple with some truly major issues - of life and death, of sorrow and loss, of filial and marital relationships - without getting heavy-handed and preachy about it in the process. Every moment in this film feels real and unforced, yet the movie itself has the minutely worked-out grace and precision of Japanese performance art (which we see quite a bit of throughout the course of the film). In fact, near the end, there is a fantasy dance sequence that is, quite frankly, one of the most utterly spellbinding scenes I've come across in ages.

Masterfully directed by Doris Dorrie, "Cherry Blossoms" is a lyrical and unforgettable work that takes its place among the truly outstanding films of recent times.

“It's merely a movie.” Yeah. Well, whenever did you see one that had every character's play connect; comprehending intuitively their wars waging within. Between the sense of responsibility, of guilt, sweet memories, shame and nagging doubts. Not of one character, but of every single one. And then not because the lines, expressions and glances are simple, the characters sparse, or the dialogues overly explicit. No. Only because every single one is a mirror of your own, if not now than those that'll (hopefully?) be experienced in the future. Their fights aren't theirs alone; they are ours too. All painfully accurate, and so incorrigibly human.

To watch sheer Love gathering momentum before and after they ... nothing less than apotheosis of overwhelming feeling, an epitome of emotion that was so unattainably beautiful; death's but a trifle after this.

I'd rate it one star ... for every time I cried (or could have, ought to and didn't), yet the scale doesn't reach that high.