The author of this article is @Ghost Foot Seven of the Xiaowan family
The only purpose of movies is to make life more interesting than movies
This Sunday is Mother's Day (May 14), a day of love and gratitude.
Let's talk about a heart-warming film that is suitable for sharing with my mother in this festival, officially released today -
"My Last Year with Mom"
This warm and healing Japanese film tells the story of a son who reacquaints himself with and accompanies his mother.
Izumi Kasai, who has already started a family, and his mother Yuriko have always been estranged - because he is the son of his mother and extramarital lover, he was abandoned by his mother from an early age, so he has been deeply estranged from this only relative for many years.
But one day, when faced with the reality that his biological mother had Alzheimer's disease, he had to take on the responsibility of caring for and accompanying her mother.
So, such a mother and son, although they are related by blood but far apart in their hearts, began a year of companionship.
Yuriko suffers from Alzheimer's disease, and her previous memories and common sense of life are gradually fading, and she needs to be taken care of everywhere.
For his son Kasai Izumi, the tedious daily life of taking care of his mother is not the most difficult for him to accept, what really makes him feel bad is - "you forgot everything".
The pain of being abandoned, the childhood that struggled to ask unanswered, the "victim" is still in deep pain, but the "perpetrator" is exempted from punishment because of pathological forgetting.
After many years of getting along with her mother Yuriko, Kasai Izumi is actually rushing to find the answer she has always hoped to know: whether my mother has ever loved me, and what does this child mean to her...
In recent years, many movies have focused on the situation of the elderly, mental condition problems and getting along with their families, among which Alzheimer's disease is an element that appears quite frequently.
As a disease, Alzheimer's disease not only causes various inconveniences to the patients themselves, but also brings great pressure to the families and loved ones who take care of them.
The 2020 high-profile work "Father Trapped in Time" shows how an elderly man who is at a loss in various memory fragments copes with a fragmented life and constantly invades his emotional fragments.
The angle chosen in the film is the patient's own perspective, and we feel the loneliness trapped in the torrent of memories in the fragmentary plot and constantly switching perspectives.
Last year's high-scoring domestic film "Mom! tells a special "reverse care" relationship, in which the daughter in her sixties suffers from Alzheimer's disease, and the mother in her eighties has to return to the identity of caring for her daughter.
Through this unique family relationship, the film reconstructs the emotional connection between mother and daughter, and feels the strength and tenacity of the mother from a new perspective.
Unlike these works, the story of My Last Year and My Mom is not a conventional "warm" route.
Yuriko is not a "perfect mother", she has left her son with an imperfect childhood, and before she has a chance to make amends, Alzheimer has broken her.
The film tells not only the story of the mother and son breaking the barrier and re-understanding each other, but also the process of how to reconcile and accept the past.
Yuriko had been clamoring to see "half a firework," a request that sounded like gibberish and left Kasai Izumi off the point.
However, as we got along with each other, I found that the "half firework" that my mother insisted on remembering while forgetting countless things actually hid a deeper secret behind it...
At the heart of My Last Year with Mom is "remembering."
At first, it is Kasai Izumi's childhood experience, then her mother Yuriko's repeated struggle between forgetting and remembering, and finally Kasai Izumi discovers that her mother has always remembered but what she has forgotten.
In many stories about Alzheimer's disease, we can feel a strong sense of powerlessness: no matter how meticulous care and no matter how long we accompany us, we can never stop the memory from slowly disappearing like quicksand.
The film does not deliberately show this pain, but like many Japanese movies, it is more concerned about the survival power under this pain, and they are also clinging to something in the ever-disappearing quicksands of memory.
Each of us forgets something different every day, and memories that may seem insignificant to you are precious memories that the whole world is willing to keep even if the whole world is forgotten.
For Kasai and her mother, the "half firework" is the final key to reconciliation.
"My Last Year with My Mother" was originally called "Hundred Flowers" in Japanese, directed by the famous Japanese producer Genki Kawamura, adapted from his own novel of the same name, which is also Kawamura Genki's first feature film directorial work.
The mention of Genki Kawamura may not be familiar to domestic audiences, but when it comes to his resume, it can be said that he is quite legendary in the entire Japanese film industry.
Born in 1979, Genki Kawamura is a young generation in the film industry, but the films he makes are highly popular.
In 2010, Kawamura's productions such as "Confessions" and "Wicked" were very popular, and the following year, Kawamura won the "Fujimoto Award" for outstanding filmmakers, becoming the youngest winner in the history of the award.
《Confession》
2012's "Wolf's Child Rain and Snow", 2014's "Parasite", 2015's "Attack on Titan Live Action", Makoto Shinkai's three works "Your Name. "Children of the Weather" and "Journey to Bell Buds" are also produced by him.
There is also "Maiki's Chef", which was Kore-eda's first collaboration with Netflix at the beginning of this year, and is also produced by Genki Kawamura.
Genki Kawamura and Makoto Shinkai
In addition, Kawamura Genki and Chinese movies also have a good relationship.
In the 2020s, Shunji Iwai's "One Book and Two Shots" "The Last Letter" was the Japanese version of "Hello, no Kaku", which was produced by Genki Kawamura;
Perhaps it is with this cooperation that the story of "Detective Chinatown 3" in 2021 takes place in Tokyo, and the production also involves a lot of Japanese content, and Genki Kawamura was invited to serve as a Japanese producer.
This series of works is enough to prove that Genki Kawamura has a basic judgment and perception of the film and story, and this time he personally directed, officially from "making wedding clothes for others" to the front desk himself.
In terms of film cast, Masaki Sugata ("Bouquet of Love", "Ah, Wilderness") and Masami Nagasawa play Izumi Kasai and his wife in the story, and the role of her mother is played by veteran actress Mieda Harada ("Northern Love", "Chaos"), and the cooperation of powerful actors of different generations is also an important highlight of the film.
"My Last Year with Mom" tells the story of mothers, and it's not just about mothers; It tells the story of forgetting and remembering, but it is not just about memory, it is actually a work that allows us to rediscover, cherish and the people around us.
This weekend, I believe it will bring you a warmth and touch.