While cleaning out the apartment of his deceased great aunt Taki, a young Japanese man finds her autobiography. He recalls sitting with his kindly, melancholy relative, helping her sort through various remembrances—how, in 1936, the young Taki (Haru Kuroki, who won the best actress award at the Berlin Film Festival for her performance) travels from the countryside to Tokyo, taking a job as a maid. She tends to a toy maker, his wife, and their polio-stricken son. Everything seems idyllic until rumors of war begin to circulate, and Taki finds herself caught up in the machinations of history. A veteran filmmaker responsible for the long-running Tora-san series, Yoji Yamada delivers the sort of traditional shomin-geki (family drama) that Shochiku used to produce by the pound during Japanese cinema’s golden age. It’s a look back at a tempestuous period in the country’s not-so-distant past that manages to be nostalgic and bittersweet in equal measure.
IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE CENTER FOR ASIAN AMERICAN MEDIA