The Cinematheque

“A film of astonishing beauty and sadness.”

Roger Ebert

The 1995 debut feature of now-reigning Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose Shoplifters won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2018, is nothing less than sublime. Model-turned-actress Makiko Esumi stars as a Yukio, a young woman haunted by the seemingly inexplicable deaths of two important people in her life. Film critics, rapturous, invoked the hallowed likes of Ozu, Bresson, and Hou to describe what Kore-eda, previously a documentarian, had accomplished in this emotionally beguiling, spiritually evocative, and visually poetic work. Adapted from a novel by Teru Miyamoto, Maborosi took Venice’s Best Director prize and VIFF’s Dragons and Tigers Award.

“Perfect … Maborosi is a pure kind of filmmaking.”

Liam Lacey, Globe & Mail