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CAPITAL FOCUS AWARD

Autumn Adagio

TSUKI INOUE
Japan, 2009, 70 minutes, Color, film's website

In director Inoue's debut feature, following her prize-winning short, The Woman Who Is Beating the Earth, we follow Catholic nun Sister Mariko (singer and musician Shibakusa Rei), who is questioning her life as she approaches menopause. Under brilliant fall foliage that makes Japan resemble New England in September, we watch as she listlessly attends to the mundane demands of the day: washing rice for dinner and polishing the church organ that she distractedly plays at services. It seems as if she has lost as much as she has gained in the years she has devoted to the church. Encounters with three different men will test her faith and help her find spiritual peace. Especially compelling is the musical interaction between the nun and a handsome ballet teacher (Nishijima Kazuhiro), which demonstrates Sister Mariko's (and Rei's) real skill at the piano. Autumn Adagio is shot with lyrical grace that matches the season and the musical form. —Dave Nuttycombe

In Japanese with English subtitles

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