207. Japanese director Naomi Kawase’s film “Sharasoju” (Shara)(2003) (Japan) based on the director’s original screenplay: A philosophical look at life and death and one’s relationship with nature, a source of spiritual sustenance
N aomi Kawase is one of the most interesting female film directors alive and actively making films. Her films are slow moving, contemplative works that discuss the close relationship of families, of religion, of tradition, and of nature. An overarching common factor for most of her films is the inevitable cycles of life and death. A twin brother running after other twin for no apparent reason, early in the film (Note: Shun is touching the wall, as he would touch parked cars later in the run as his brother does) S hara is an intimate portrait of two contemporary nuclear Japanese families living in the old Japanese town of Nara with narrow streets, barely more than the width of a large car and yet one sees cars of many sizes parked off the narrow streets. There is tradition and there is modernity—a conflict that is often tangentially discussed in Kawase’s films. The two families have similarities. Both have had a male member suddenly leave/disappear. (In one case, the viewer is told, a y...