Phases of the Moon (some thoughts)
Finally I watched Tsuki no Michikake! Spoilers and some thoughts below 😊 I'll illustrate some points with screenshots I took from the trailers. At first, I wanted to write on Twitter, but since there'll be spoilers and lots of people didn't watch it yet, I thought it was better to write it here. That, and I also ramble way too much, and it would't fit in Twitter character limits. 😆 My essay random thoughts are under the cut!
Click to viewThis movie was based on the book "Tsuki no Michikake", written by Sato Shogo. I didn't read it, so these are my thoughts based on the movie itself.
For insights about the movie and also the book, I recommend JM-san's and stormsnow's posts. They're very good reads.
I won't write the whole summary here (on these two posts linked above, you have a clear picture of the story), but basically the gist of it is: a woman (Masaki Ruri) dies twice, and reincarnates trying to reunite with her lover (Misumi Akihiko), in the same lifetime. In one of her lives, she was Osanai Ruri, daugther of Osanai Tsuyoshi.
One of the main themes is reincarnation, and I also think it's safe to say it's also about love, loss, and what we can do for those we love.
I was afraid the movie would be difficult to follow because of so many flashbacks, the movie going back and forfth in time, but it was pretty smooth for me. The basic structure is the present, and then flashback inside of flashbacks. Even so, I think the movie was easy to follow and I didn't feel lost watching it, but maybe that's because I already had read JM-san and stormsnow posts before. haha Then again, my dad (who watched it with me), had a very faint idea about the movie was about only from the trailers, but he also had no problems following the storyline.
I also confess I was fearing that I wouldn't like the movie - though I love Tsukimichi's cast, I watched a movie ("Ride or Die" aka "She") from the director Hiroki Ryuichi before, and I really didn't like it. But I'm glad it wasn't the case here - Tsukimichi was wonderful.
Osanai Tsuyoshi was a very fascinating character for me. I think it's the first time I watched a work of Oizumi Yo (and he's such a great actor! I'm going to watch more of his works, that's for sure). So, in the story he had a happy family, but one day, in a car accident, he loses his wife (Kozue) and his daughter (Ruri). His grief is devastating, but after that, he's confronted with the possibility that his daugther was the reincarnation of someone else, and that she possibly reincarnated again, and he doesn't know what to think about this.
He doesn't know if he can believe his daugther reincarnated - maybe he doesn't want to have hopes, only to have it to be a lie and feel crushed again; maybe it's a tasteless joke. But also, and that's one the scenes that deeply touched me, it's when he says that, if that's true, "My daughter was a stranger inside, but what was all that time I spent grieving over her death?" In a way, he's also asking: if that's true, what was the meaning of his daughter's life? Wasn't his daughter her own person? And what that meant for his family? And what about his family?
However, Osanai is also alone, and deep inside he wants to believe his daugther reincarnated. That's why he agrees to meet Midorisaka Yuri and her daughter Ruri, despite being so conflicted about the whole issue. I think any one us who lost someone would like to have them back, too - it's a very human thing to wish for. So Osanai wants to believe, but at the same time, he also doesn't want to believe, because of all his questions and conflicts.
In a way, he confronts the root of Ruri's objectives; he's her narrative foil. Ruri dies, again and again, and once more she reincarnates, trying to reunite with Misumi - but Osanai asks her, "do you think he is still waiting? And even if he is, with you being a child, what you will do? Then what? "
And that's one of the points. If you think about it, Ruri is then 7 years old, and Misumi by now is probably in his 40s - they won't be able to be lovers like they were in her original life. I really like that the movie adressed this issue, and the inevitable discomfort we feel when we think of Misumi's and reincarnated Ruri's current circunstances, because of the age gap.
But before getting to Ruri's answer, I will just take a step back and dive a bit into her character arc. Ruri is a beautiful woman, who is trapped in a terrrible marriage, suffering verbal and physical abuse from her husband. She's very much disillusioned with life.
Things change when she meets Misumi - a young, naive, and kind college student. For Misumi, Ruri is his first adult love; and Ruri, with Misumi, rediscovers love and life. Even though they're having an affair, there's a certain "pureness" about them - not in a prude sense, but because they discover (or rediscover) love with each other. Misumi uses a T-shirt with the name of the 1970's movie "A Swedish Love Story" (which I didn't watch), that IMDB describes as a story of "two teenagers fall in love over the summer, in spite of cynical and disapproving adults who dismiss their relationship as being nothing but young love". Since both Misumi and Ruri love movies, and with Misumi using that T-shirt in some important scenes, maybe that's a way of the director showing us that the love they have for each other is a kind of first love (or maybe I'm reading too much into this! XD)
Ruri knows what they're doing is not fair to Misumi, and she tries to end it all, but Misumi says he'll always wait for her, no matter what day, or hour, no matter what.
However, when Ruri decides to leave her husband, he doesn't accept that and chases her, causing her to panic and to end up falling in the train tracks, where she finds her death. But because of Misumi's promise and her love for him, she reincarnates, trying to find Misumi again, despite all the obstacles.
One thing about Ruri is that, in the movie, she's always singing Yoko Ono's song "Remember Love", no matter which life she's living. The song depicts love as driving force that makes us live - or, in Ruri's case, love is the reason, the force she uses to reincarnate and try to reunite with Misumi again.
"Remember love, remember love,
Love is what it takes to sing
Remember love, remember love,
Love is what it takes to meet
Remember love, remember love,
Love is what it takes to live
Remember love, remember love,
Love is what it takes to dream"
(Remember Love, by Yoko Ono)
But for how long she will do this? And now that, in her third life, she's 7 and Misumi is much older, what's the point of this? That's what Osanai (and us) asks her, to which her answer is, even though she's conflicted: she doesn't know what to do, but still, she wants to see him again. She knows they won't be able to be the same as they were, but I think that maybe she wants to let him now that she came back for him, that she is there for him again, that he won't be alone.
And as for the existence known as "Osanai Ruri"... she repeats the words that she said to Osanai when she was his daugther: that she was really happy that she was his and Kozue's daugther; that his dad was so kind to her, and that she would never forget that. And that's the moment when Osanai finally accepts his daugther reincarnated, crying and hugging her (and that's also the moment when me and my dad bursted out in tears. Like father, like daugther 😆).
Now, about Misumi! He appears in his early 20s (when he meets Ruri), and then in his 30s (when he meets Osanai), and I think Meme did a great job portraying him. Young Misumi is kind and more naive, and Meme managed to show his awkwardness and innocence. Then, when we see him again in his 30s, you can notice the tiredness, the grief for losing Ruri, and the mature air about Misumi, and also the kindness he still carries. When he realizes Osanai is being hurt by his assumptions of Osanai Ruri being a reincarnation of Masaki Ruri, he decides to leave him alone and try not to hurt him anymore.
(I'm going to talk about the love scenes now - if you don't feel comfortable reading about this, please stop here) Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is Meme's first kiss scene, and also first bed scene, right? I think the scenes were very tender. There was also some awkwardness, but that worked because it was Misumi's first time, and there was also all of Ruri's background (from what I read about the novel, Ruri's husband kept saying how she was bad at sex, besides all abuses he did to her). So Misumi and Ruri being awkward, plus the theme of first love, all of that made the scene more grounded and also more tender.
Also, I have to say, the movie reserved some of its most beautiful shots for the Misumi and Ruri scenes. I don't understand a thing about movies from a technical point of view, but... seriously, there were some scenes that were simply so beautiful.
One of them is, after Misumi and Ruri made love, they're sitting by the window, wrapped in sheets, looking at the moon. There's a sort of blue light coming from the moon, shining over them, like they're on their own world. Then, when Misumi notices a scar on Ruri's body and she says it's nothing, she's reminded that she has to go back to "reality". Misumi notices this, too, and trys to make her stay with him, saying he wants them to stay there, forever. But she apologizes and leaves; in that moment, the blue light disappears, too. And there's sadness in Misumi's face.
That scene is heartbreaking, but it's so pretty. It caught my attention ever since I saw the trailer, and it was even more beautiful in the movie, watching it in full.
And the reunion scene - it was so beautifully shot. The transition from the current Ruri to the original Ruri, the rain, Misumi's words, the hug. We know that they're meeting with Misumi at his 40s, Ruri being 7, but what we see on the screen is their souls as they first met. And when they hug, there's only the two of them, there's no one else in the world. Finally, they're together again. It was a very heartwarming scene, and quite poetic too. The first time I watched, I didn't cry at this scene, but now I was watching again, I ended up with tears in my eyes.
That hug scene was happening with John Lennon's "Woman" playing on the background, which was a nice touch, since the song Ruri sings is from Yoko Ono, Lennon's wife, and there's a part in "Woman" where the song's narrator asks his lover to hold him close, the same way Misumi and Ruri hug each other: "Please remember my life is in your hands/And woman, hold me close to your heart/However distant, don't keep us apart/After all it is written in the stars."
TL;DR the movie was wonderful and poetic, the cast's acting was great, visually was also a beautiful movie, OST was super fitting, Meme was great, I cried. I'm glad Meme had the oportunity to have this role, and also receiveing awards for this movie. I'm looking foward to watch him grow even more.
I'll end this review here, already rambled way too much. haha And if you managed to read everything: thank you so much, and until next time 🖤 (Also, feel free to ramble with me about this movie! What did you think, and did you like it? I'd love to hear your thoughts.)