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04/23/09
Cherry Blossoms (2009)
84
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:50
Fresh:42
Rotten:8
Average Rating:7/10
Consensus: This mature and eloquent meditation on grief and loss sports measured performances and moments of humor.
Theatrical Release:Jan 16, 2009 Limited
Box Office: $293,708
Synopsis: Doris Dörrie (HOW TO COOK YOUR LIFE) directs this drama about an older married couple in love. Wife Trudi is the only one who knows that her husband, Rudi, has a disease that will kill him. In... [More]
Starring: Elmar Wepper, Hannelore Elsner, Aya Irizuki, Birgit Minichmayr
Director: Doris Dörrie
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Reviews for Cherry Blossoms
Exquisitely shot and initially absorbing, but it often drags and, ultimately, feels contrived and overstays its welcome at an excessive running time of 2 hours and 7 minutes.
01/30/09
A beautiful tissue-paper piece of art that falls to shreds should you so much as blow upon it
01/15/09
The example set by Ozus best works goes unheeded as the film becomes too cutesy and forced to be moving.
04/09/09
Yearning for Ozu, Dörrie stops off at cute, and parks.
02/26/09
As Cherry Blossoms (Kirschblüten - Hanami) begins, Trudi is surprised when she learns her husband is dying of an unnamed condition.
03/08/09
If you believe that Trudi's silence about Rudi's illness is unethical, you'll want to throttle instead of console her.
02/19/09
There's meat and sustenance there, but Cherry Blossoms too often traffics in shopworn Western notions of Japanese culture; it's a pilgrim's-eye-view of Zen.
02/12/09
At more than two hours, Cherry Blossoms could do with some pruning.
01/16/09
Doris Dorrie's Cherry Blossoms is both a tender tale of cultural crossings and a double portrait of grief.
01/16/09
Top CriticThere's a grace to it all, and moments of oddball poetry will reward patient viewers.
01/22/09
The bluntness of the script doesn't attain the ethereal quality it's striving for (Japanese cinema favours inscrutability, a cultural lesson that seems to have been lost in translation here), but it's still oddly absorbing.
04/03/09
Sometimes a quiet whisper is more compelling than the loudest shout. Cherry Blossoms is a gentle, maudlin tale of love, loss, family ties and the fleeting nature of life.
04/03/09
It is a seldom-told story in an essentially youth-oriented, escapist movie industry, but when it is told sublimely well, as it is by Ms. Dörrie now, and by McCarey in 1937, and by Ozu in 1953, it becomes a film for the ages.
01/21/09
Top CriticDoris Dorries Cherry Blossoms translates a foreigner-in-Japan experience much better than Sofia Coppola could.
01/14/09
Cherry Blossoms is an exquisitely and delicately crafted film about love, loss, and a kind of spiritual healing.
03/17/09
With exquisite performances, engaging camerawork, and a compassionate story that cuts directly to bone, Blossoms is a riveting, perceptive feature film...It's an incredible motion picture.
03/05/09
Cherry Blossoms is both austere and garish, simultaneously dry and sentimental, tightly repressed and extravagantly expressive, bourgeois and bohemian. It's a seesaw, but [director] Dorrie finds the balance.
02/26/09
Top CriticTokyo's bustling downtown has never looked so vibrant and distinctive on film, and the titular blossoms are an eye-popping metaphor for the film's approach to life.
03/06/09
It's a gentle lesson in facing life's hardships with acceptance rather than grief.
03/06/09
Latest News for Cherry Blossoms
February 08, 2009:
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