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How sad is this?

Highly Overrated But Still Good

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

"Kirschblüten - Hanami" or "Cherry Blossoms - Hanami" is a German film from 2008, which means it will have its 10th anniversary 2 years from now. The writer and director is Doris Dörrie and this film (among others) turned her into what many probably consider Germany's most influential female filmmaker of the last decades. Her cast here includes E. Wepper, Elsner, Uhl, Minichmayr, Brückner and a handful other German actors that are somewhat known here in Germany, plus a couple Japanese actors because of the setting. The first third is about an old married couple (from Southern Germany) reuniting with their children in Berlin, but somehow not really succeeding in making a connection, especially the man. The scene when they struggle with the train ticket machine is possibly the most entertaining and it shows that they just don't fit there.The first third of the film ends with the old woman's death and the remaining two thirds is about the husband taking a deep insight into the lifelong dream of his wife, namely going to Japan and becoming part of an ancient Japanese tradition. A lot of the film has to do with the culture clash between Rudi Angermeier (Wepper) and Japanese culture and tradition, how he goes on a journey into a world that is entirely new to him. Dörrie has made the movie "Erleuchtung garantiert" before this one (almost a decade) and very recently she made "Grüße aus Fukushima", which shows how strong Dörrie's connection to this Asian country must be. In my opinion, the quality is on par with the chronology. "Erleuchtung garantiert" is the best from the trio, "Kirschblüten - Hanami" is certainly inferior and "Grüße aus Fukushima" is easily the worst and a huge mess.About this one here, I think visually, in terms of sets, cinematography and costumes, these areas is where it shines the most. Wepper is also pretty good, even if the awards recognition may have been a bit too much. There are better (German) lead performances from that year such as Matthias Brandt for example. The film itself has a couple pretentious moments and feels like style over substance on some occasions too, but I still feel it was a creative achievement, even if it should have been kept more essential at 105 minutes instead of over two hours. I would say it is indeed one of the best German films from 2008, but not among the very best and also not among the best from Europe. I love Japan a lot as well and, even if I recommend the watch, I would call it a bit of a lost opportunity and it is kinda sad how Dörrie's Japan-themed films got worse and worse over the years.

I am giving this movie a five out of 10 because of the settings and the photography. Also the originality of the script. I do realize that others have said this is a remake of a Japanese film but since I am not familiar with that this is new to me.Many on the message boards have commented on the coldness of the grown children to the parents. But they must not have listened to the children's side of the story. How the mother had been consumed with deferring to the father who did think the small world of his family should revolve around him. I found the father/husband the least sympathetic character. Maybe I do not like the actor but he did not seem visibly distressed by the unexpected death of his wife.The films most likable characters were the lesbian partner of the daughter and the street performer who befriends the father. The partner observes that she sees someone inside the mother that her family can not see. This is a rare gift and probably this woman sees the "inside" person in many people. The Japanese girl also had a rare gentility and generosity that could not have been better expressed, even if in my opinion, to a somewhat undeserving person. The film never says (and no one on the message board asked) if she was allowed to keep the money Rudi gave her. But I wished that was so. My absolute favorite scenes were those in the vacation place near Mt. Fuji. I loved everything about them, makes me almost wish I could visit Japan to see them. However living in Tokyo would certainly not appeal.The most inexplicable character was that of the mother. She had the heart and soul of an artist and she completely subjugated it to serving a not very interesting husband. I am roughly her age (if not older) and her subservience to him was unpleasant. Actually also to her children. She seemed to have no ego in relationship to the nearest people to her but the film never presents a reason that should be so.

In Japan, cherry blossoms are symbolic of the transient nature of life, requiring only one week to bloom and then fall. In Cherry Blossoms, the Ozu-like film by director Doris Dorrie, a practicing Zen Buddhist, is a rare film about a subject that Hollywood usually avoids, aging and death. Despite a few one-dimensional characterizations, it is a charming and often moving work that has a feeling for the silences, the places within us that we have suppressed, but which are always just beneath the surface. A long-time married couple Rudi Angermeier (Elmar Wepper) and his wife Trudi (Hannelore Elsner), live in a small German town. Rudi is tied to a routine.Each day, he takes the same train to his job as a civil servant, eats a sandwich and an apple at the same hour, and rarely attempts anything new or adventurous. On the other hand, Trudi has never stopped dreaming, longing to go to Japan to become a Butoh dancer. When Rudi is diagnosed with a terminal illness, Trudi is unable to bring herself to tell Rudi the truth. She instead suggests that it would be a good time for them to travel to Berlin to see their children, Klaus (Felix Eitner) who is married with two children, and their lesbian daughter Karolin (Birgit Minichmayr) who lives with her partner Franzi (Nadja Uhl). Things do not go well, however.Mirroring the clash of generations in Ozu's Tokyo Story, the children are indifferent, making it clear that they do not have time to spend with their parents and seeming to regard their visit as an intrusion. Only Franzi makes the parents feel as if they are appreciated, taking them on sightseeing trips around the city. Shockingly, Trudi dies suddenly during a visit to the beach near the Baltic Sea, and a confused and lonely Rudi decides to visit their youngest son Karl (Maximilian Brueckner) in Tokyo, seeking to be close to his wife in spirit by fulfilling her dream of going to Japan.He arrives during the time of the cherry blossoms where the view of the white Sakura blossoms surrounded by views of mountains and water is stunning. It is here that each spring, in the ritual known as Hanami, Japanese sit under the blossoming trees to celebrate the lives of those close to them who have passed away. Unfortunately, the journey is marred by Karl's coldness towards his father who, he believes, has had little interest in his life. Feeling sad and rejected, in the park one day, Rudi meets Yu (Aya Irizuki), an eighteen-year-old homeless street artist performing Butoh, a dance expressing intense emotions through slow, controlled, and sometimes distorted movements, often performed in white body makeup and painted face.Drawn to each other, their innocent communion leads them to Mount Fuji – Rudi's wife's dream. As Rudi symbolically becomes both himself and his wife, they celebrate and mourn their own love and loss. Cherry Blossoms suggests that we often prevent our true self from fully expressing itself, either to ourselves or each other, "to blossom like the cherry tree." For Rudi, after a lifetime of suppression, the day came, as author Anais Nin put it, "when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

This is the film Sofia Coppola could only dream of making, a far more sophisticated and sensitive LOST IN TRANSLATION. Dorie's visual cues play out beautifully throughout her film as the narrative unfolds. Her dedication toward representing the Japanese in a much more respectful and flattering light allows her character transcend cultural barriers and lose himself in the beauty of Japan. At first, one would question yet another film where a man goes to an adult bar in Tokyo, but outside all of the "strangeness" he initially perceives, the film ends up taking an intelligent and poetic turn. What at first seems to be more like TOKYO STORY builds into a meditation on mourning and transformation. Cultural differences provide an opportunity for finding understanding, something Coppola completely seemed to be incapable of. The young Japanese dancer in the film is charming. Through her, this encounter becomes more than a fling through the city, but an opportunity to come to terms with life and death.