my father the sailor

What are dreams? What to do when we are not meant to do what we dream of doing? What to do when life just happens and we are left alone to question our own talent? Daigo, a cellist in an orchestra, leaves everything behind and leaves Tokyo for a small village in the north of Japan. Even though this may seem a bit extreme his ever and over positive wife, who happens to be happy all the time, follows him. Here’s where the real adventure begins. What are coincidences? Are they linked to faith? Can fate take the form of a misspelling? Maybe life is just one big trial. But we are never really left alone in times of tribulation and Daigo finds a job shrouding bodies, Japanese style. A rite done peacefully and beautifully that he performs with such calmness, grace, precision and even gentle affection. Throughout the film we see how everybody deals with pain in different ways. Infinite sadness comes over us as if all the joy had disappeared from the face of earth. We also have the privilege of discovering some Japanese philosophy, we learn that the living eat the dead. If one doesn’t want to die one eats, and if one has decided to eat then one should eat well, eat the best. We learn that birth normally brings death in its awake. Death is not the end; death is a gateway, we go through it into the next level. Daigo is only a gamekeeper. It is a decent job, given the fact we all die. But how far people’s prejudices go? Why are some villagers bullying him? The film is complex, not complicated; one of its many layers is the story of his father that left him during his childhood. Daigo hates him for that but he cherishes one little rock his father once gave him. Legend has it that in the time where writing had not been yet invented people used to send stones to tell people how they felt. From touching the stone one would know how the sender was feeling towards one. A smooth stone meant you were feeling happy, a rough one meant you were worried about one or that there were difficult times. The movie is all about forgiveness; he needs to let go of this hatred to be able to take care of the baby his wife is expecting. I was 17 when my father died, I went to his service but I didn’t see his face. Why, if I never met him, should I keep the image of a corpse forever in my memory as being my father? I rather keep the emptiness and darkness that come up to my mind when I think of him. Write to me a love letter on a stone, one that says how much you love me, it must be smooth, it must be small, it must sing to me, just by touching it, of the warmth of your heart.