Summer Blooms (2017)

"Every time you lose something, you have to discover another piece of yourself"

Summer Blooms was a gauzy slow journey through a young woman's grief and guilt. Hatsumi's life froze in one moment in spring, not looking back and not moving forward. A series of events jarred her loose from her self-imposed exile compelling her to face the truth of her life and the death of her ex-boyfriend.

Hatsumi works part-time in a soba noodle shop, listens to the radio, and floats through her days. We're told her boyfriend had died three years ago in the spring, an event that upended her world. She gave up teaching and for the most part, living. Whether it was sorrow over the loss of a great love or something else we don't know. The noodle shop owner is retiring and closing the shop ending her tenure there. An old student attempting to make it as a jazz singer drops into her life. The energetic, kooky young woman shakes up her mundane routine. With the restaurant closing, a customer who had eaten there every day just to see her, finally works up the courage to speak to her. He wants more from her, but she seems reticent to go out with him. A pregnant ex-colleague asks her to substitute for her while she is on maternity leave, pressuring her to make a decision. And more dramatically, the deceased ex-boyfriend's last letter to her shows up at her door step.

After three years of existing, she decides to confront the past and travels to the town where her boyfriend's parents live. Here her truth comes out as well as the reason for his death. To be honest, I'd figured it out early on, but the movie takes us well into the last act before it shares these revelations. I found his letter to be self-serving and it seemed she did as well. It turns out it was one of many he'd written her, with her not responding to them. In the end she wrote him a letter that helped her move from spring to summer.

Asakura Aki was perfect for playing a reserved young woman with a fake smile. She gave us tiny glimpses into the pain beneath and through the former student Kaede, flashes of the fierceness she was capable of displaying. Kawasaki Yuriko as Kaede gave just the right balance of youthful bravura and frightened homeless waif with an abusive boyfriend. She also supplied a clue that Hatsumi's ex-boyfriend might not have been mentally well-balanced. Miura Takahiro's Totaro, the craftsman in love with her, was rather bland and something of a red flag with his behaviors.

Summer Blooms was a light exploration of Hatsumi's grief and guilt and her withdrawal from the world. It took a collision of circumstances to finally force her to face her monotonous life and the reason for it. Due to the reason for her seclusion, I was expecting more of a moment of emotional discovery and more revelations to the audience for why she felt she needed to suffer so much. What led to the fateful moment that crystallized her life in seclusion? In the end, it felt like the movie was skipping stones on the shallow surface of her life and only briefly touching on the real reason behind her actions when the stone sank below the waves. Though the film attempted to show how one young woman responded to loss and finally worked through it, the story lacked the depth to have a proper conversation and left many pertinent elements of her previous relationship unknown.

8/14/23

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