“The most charming comedy in town … lovely fantastical flourishes.” (Chicago Tribune)
Writer/director Katsuhito Ishii’s delightfully oddball 2003 comedy/drama was a winner of WFC’s autumn 2022 Members’ Choice film vote. The lives of several members of the artistic Haruno family, living in rural Japan north of Tokyo, are explored in inter-weaving episodes. Absurdist comedy and surreal flights of fancy make for an idiosyncratic, yet deeply affectionate, family portrait.
“everything is anchored in a gentle, affectionate view of a household whose members are ever so slowly finding themselves. The tea that everybody drinks is warm and restorative, and so is Ishii’s strange, sentimental film.” (Little White Lies)
