Maborosi

Maborosi, known in Japan as Maboroshi no Hikari, is a 1995 Japanese drama film by director Hirokazu Kore-eda starring Makiko Esumi, Tadanobu Asano, and Takashi Naito. It is based on a novel by Teru Miyamoto.
Maborosi won a Golden Osella Award for Best Cinematography at the 1995 Venice Film Festival.

Plot

Yumiko and Ikuo are a young Osaka couple who have a new baby. One day Ikuo is walking along the railway tracks and is hit and killed by a train. It seems that he may have done this deliberately yet there is no apparent motive. A few years pass. Yumiko agrees to an arranged marriage with a widower, Tamio, and she and Yuichi move to Tamio's house in a rustic village on the Sea of Japan coast.
A drunken spat over a bell Yumiko had given Ikuo just before he died causes Yumiko and Tamio to discuss their strong emotions for their lost loves. Shortly after, Yumiko follows a funeral procession and lingers at the crematorium, until Tamio arrives by car to pick her up, at which point she says she just wants to know why Ikuo killed himself. Tamio suggests that, like the will o' the wisps his father used to see, perhaps something just drew him away from life.

Cast

Makiko Esumi as Yumiko
as Tamio
Tadanobu Asano as Ikuo
Gohki Kashiyama as Yuichi
Naomi Watanabe as Tomoko
Midori Kiuchi as Michiko
Akira Emoto as Yoshihiro
Mutsuko Sakura as Tomeno
as Master
as Hatsuko
Ren Osugi as Hiroshi, Yumiko's father
as Kiyo
Sayaka Yoshino as young Yumiko
Minori Terada as Detective
Shuichi Harada as Cop
Takashi Inoue as Driver

Critical reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, Maborosi has a perfect approval rating of based on reviews, with an average score of. On Metacritic, the film is scored 92 out of a 100, based on 8 reviews. It garnered a positive reaction from critics upon its American release, and received two thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert on the April 12, 1997 episode of their program. Ebert further praised the film in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, noting its "astonishing beauty and sadness" and the influence of Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. It was later included on Siskel and Ebert's "Best Films of 1997" episode in January 1998.