The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
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Critics Consensus: This mature and eloquent meditation on grief and loss sports measured performances and moments of humor.
Critic Consensus: This mature and eloquent meditation on grief and loss sports measured performances and moments of humor.
All Critics (56) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (45) | Rotten (11) | DVD (3)
This may lack the understated pathos of Ozu's somber masterpiece, but it's still a moving meditation on aging and loss, and Wepper and Elsner are unforgettable.
This is a sweet-natured piece, and though the final section in Tokyo itself is sentimental and over-extended, there are poignant, mordant insights.
A uniquely poignant meditation on mortality.
The movie is an ideal blend of character study, deceptively simple plot twists, inspired acting, and travelogue.
A quiet, moving tale of love and loss.
If you have ever seen Yasujiro Ozu's masterpiece Tokyo Story -- one of the greatest films ever made -- you may respond to Doris Dörrie's Cherry Blossoms, which is a kind of homage.
I am in favor of films remaining enigmatic or having an air of mystery about them, but Cherry Blossoms crosses the line into aimlessness.
Is it all a bit precious and far-fetched? Sure, but so, the filmmaker is saying, is life.
I can appreciate Dörrie's craft, and her sincerity, but the two-hour story of Rudi's evolution, which includes his unlikely friendship with a tiresome white-faced butoh performer (Aya Irizuki), meant nothing to me.
A bare reading of the plot doesn't actually do justice to the subtle beauty of this exquisite little film.
The example set by Ozu's best works goes unheeded as the film becomes too cutesy and forced to be moving.
It's a quiet, very beautiful film about the duality of love and death.
I thought I already reviewed this one! The acting style was something that I had to get into, but when the true drama sets in halfway, I couldn't stop crying (yeah I know, I'm a big woos). Which for me, is always a good indicator for a high rating (Really? Really!). Somehow the movie The Lovely Bones touched me in a way this movie did as well.
Super Reviewer
In "Cherry Blossoms," Trudi(Hannelore Elsner), knowing her husband Rudi(Elmar Wepper), a mid-level bureaucrat, is dying, wants to finally travel with him to Japan to visit their son Karl(Maximilian Bruckner), see Mount Fuji and watch a performance of Butoh which she loves. But he decides against it, feeling they have some perfectly fine mountains in Germany, thank you very much. Instead, they travel to Berlin to visit family who feel they are being inconvenienced by their visit. So, the couple moves on to the Baltic Sea. While owing a huge debt to Ozu's magnificent "Tokyo Story" in its depiction of the marginalization of senior citizens, "Cherry Blossoms" is still an amiable and bittersweet meditation on mortality. The movie contains a twist that turns everything on its head and reinforces the notion that we can never take anything for granted.(Strange as it may seem, this reminds me of a line from the voiceover from "Kick-Ass.") Rudi goes through the motions of his clockwork life, thinking that it will always be the same at least until he retires the following year, displaying his lack of imagination. It is Trudi who hears the clock ticking with time running out with the man she has lived with for decades and always thought she would spend the rest of her life with.
The first half of Cherry Blossom is a wonderfully realised German tribute to Tokyo Story. An elderly couple go to visit their children only to find that they do not have time for them. The twist here is that the wife knows that the husband is dying but he does not. This adds a forever lingering atmosphere of tragedy, but is far from predictable. The second half of the film moves to Japan and explores it's own territory. Here we are treated to tender and saddening moments that many people will be able to relate to. The Japanese landscapes are captured in a way that fully expresses the wonder felt by the protagonists. Some of the child/parent conflict is a bit blatant and some of the culture cross is uninspired. Another film where a westerner thinks somebody introducing them self as Yu, is saying "you"? Really? Luckily the wonderful and meditative feel that radiates off the film, cover those small blemishes.
I saw this one as well at the Cleveland International Film Fest. I didn't like this one quite as much as my wife did, but it was a good solid drama. The elderly man's wife has always wanted to see Japan, Mount Fuji, and a particular kind of traditional dance that inspires her. The man has his routine and doesn't like to travel much. The man and woman have three children who have all moved far away and find their parents difficult. The wife convinces her husband to visit their two children who live closest because she knows he is near death, then while visiting the beach where they honeymooned she tragically dies first. The man eventually decides to go to Japan, where their other son happens to work, to reconnect with his wife. It's humorous when he takes to cross-dressing in his wife's clothes to be closer to her. He has a unique way of looking at death and the afterlife that I was not familiar with. He befriends a young homeless woman who practices the kind of dance his wife enjoyed in the park for change. Together they go to see Mount Fuji, which turns out to be more difficult than expected. It is an amazing scene when the man is finally able to view Mount Fuji and he reconnects with his wife through dance in the most beautiful and passionate and heart-rending moment.
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