Director: Koreeda Hirokazu

Released in 2008.

This film made me melancholy. Perhaps it’s a sign of me growing old(er). Just like how I sometimes get flashes of anxiety about illness and death. It was painful watching the bickering old husband and wife; the son dreading spending time with his aged parents; the old folk looking forward to seeing him again, not knowing that he and his wife are discussing making their next trip shorter. There’s much more to the story, but I just kept thinking about lonely old age and being forgotten.

(N.B. Abe Hiroshi who was terrible in The Garden of Evening Mists is rather good in this.)