Umbrella Flower(KAZA-HANA)

After a night of alcoholic stupor, he forgets everything, but she remembers it all. On their journey to Hokkaido, he is looking to lose his past as an elite bureaucrat fired for a theft scandal, and she is looking to revive hers as a mother who abandons her baby girl to work in a Tokyo ‘pink club’. Failed to renew her relationship with her daughter, she takes off into the snow… Delicate and gorgeously melancholic, Somai’s swan song before his premature death elevates a stark story of two lonely souls at the end of their ropes, yet eventually finding closure. Punctuated with unexpected flashbacks, his elegiac long takes now close on the meditation of life and loss, leaving behind beauty and hope that transcend death.

Mainichi Film Awards: Best Art Direction

Kinema Junpo Top Ten: #5