More from the movie corner of Graziella: Sweet Bean
Forty years ago we might have said that this week’s recommendation is “the most Japanese of films.” Afraid of stereotyping, we don’t say that today, but you might find this incipit useful, for Naomi Kawase’s Sweet Bean (2015) has the beauty of cherry blossoms in the wind. Indeed, her film exudes a delicate sense of the impermanence of things, the ineffable feeling that the Japanese call Mono No Aware and that has often permeated the best of their cinema (e.g.Ozu). Indeed, humility, impermanence and a wistful beauty fill Sweet Bean to the brim: this is in fact an art with momentous consequences. Kawase’s film might be sad but is so spiritually uplifting that you would be making a mistake not to watch it. Just make sure you are not in a rush and are ready to appreciate the small yet big things of our passage on this planet.
