The story of “Great Absence” is something of a mystery, as structured quite magnificently by Kumano and Chika-ura, directing only his second feature. The film moves freely between timelines, marked largely by Yohji’s lucidity and Naomi’s presence. Small clues dropped early in the film later help fill in the story as if they’re brush strokes, the full picture of this family’s painful absences emerging only near the end. Furthermore, Yutaka Yamazaki, the film’s revered director of photography, shot it on 35 mm film, which gives “Great Absence” a grainy, weighty feeling, as if we’re peeking into some past memory. To follow it all requires close attention, but it’s an attention that’s rewarded.
The film’s structuring conceit is Takashi’s work in a play, a Japanese translation of Eugène Ionesco’s “Exit the King.” In that absurdist play, Ionesco explores the slow death of King Berenger the First, a patriarch who refuses to accept his own decline, even as his kingdom crumbles around him. It’s not hard to see the link between the play-within-the-film and Yohji’s decline, his attempt to retain an imperious power even as everyone around him can see that he’s lost his grip on reality.
Chika-ura has said in interviews that the film is based in part on his own experiences with his father, who lived with severe dementia. Anyone who’s had close contact with loved ones experiencing the same condition knows the feeling of helplessness that accompanies it — the feeling of watching whole sections of history evaporate, of seeing that someone who once shared your reality has moved into another world, one that’s constantly shifting. Such a relationship may be even more difficult when fraught with the weight of personal history, of wrongs and grudges and memories. Takashi’s struggle to figure out what has happened to his father, and to Naomi, and what it means for his own life, is familiar.
In the end, “Great Absence” contains the grace that arises from a great struggle. All things pass away, after all. Even the memories of those who remain lucid till the end eventually disappear with them. For Takashi, the question that remains is both painful and beautiful: What can he learn about his father’s past absence now that the man has more or less disappeared? And in the end, is it only love that remains?
Great Absence
Not rated. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 32 minutes. In theaters.
Read More: ‘Great Absence’ Review: A Mystery of Disappearance
