Haru’s Journey (2010, Unclassified 18+)

(Haru tono tabi) Dir: KOBAYASHI Masahiro, Japan, 134mins, 35mm

Irritable old fisherman Tadao lives in isolated retirement, in the care of his 19-year-old granddaughter, Haru. However, Tadao grasps that Haru needs to get a life. Equipped with his battered old address book, they set off south to visit his estranged siblings and find one still willing take him in. Haru’s Journey continues acclaimed Japanese director Kobayashi’s recent shift to a gentler (sometimes deceptively so) style and pace, a concern for reconciliation and a love of the landscapes of Hokkaido and northern Japan. But there’s deeper poignancy here – Tadao and his siblings are played by veterans of the final classics of directors like Ozu and Kurosawa. And much of the Tohoku coastal region down which the film travels was to be inundated by tsunami just a year after Haru’s Journey was made.