Critic Reviews

In the end, Great Absence contains the grace that arises from a great struggle.

Working from an excellent screenplay (by Chika-ura and Keita Kumano) that’s a finely tuned model of narrative empathy, and boasting an all-timer portrait of decline by the great Tatsuya Fuji (“In the Realm of the Senses”), it conveys both keen insight into a tough situation and, at the same time, intriguingly lets some workings of the heart and mind remain impenetrable.

Great Absence isn’t quite as allergic to sentiment as this slow and steady film might seem on the surface, and it’s prone to metaphor in a way that a less honest story would never be able to survive, but Kei is committed to keeping things at the same even keel as Yamazaki Yutaka’s locked-off cinematography.

Even though Great Absence, is a little overlong and its framing device, an avant-garde theater piece, feels unnecessary, in another way its multiple strands and many endings are extraordinarily, poetically appropriate.

For all the weak symbolism, Great Absence‘s achronological structure is a triumph.

Anyone who has dealt with the deterioration of a parent will find something resonant in Chika-ura’s film, one that can sometimes feel self-indulgent in its pacing and length but never loses its nuance, thanks both to its refined direction and a truly stellar performance from the legendary Tatsuya Fuji.

Fuji’s performance is the highlight here, a man of science and obsessive Ham radio buff struggling to communicate what he’s going through but failing to soften his personality as his memory, and the self-control it might contain, fail.

The film is an exquisite journey, wonderfully acted, sublimely shot, and thoughtfully conceived.