Grandmother

Death is a passage and, as with all journeys, close relatives and friends accompany the traveller up to his or her point of departure. After a protracted coma, the grandmother of Yuki Kawamur, the filmmaker, dies and her death spurs a reflection on mourning and, beyond that, on life, its multiple forms, the acceptance of its limits, its disappearance, as well as a trustingness in its inexhaustible resources. Water, mist, sea, foam, lichens, bulrushes and orchids are all signs of this infinite diversity. Even the rawest, most violent images of her final hours show the immaterial power of this energy, through the camera’s pauses on her suffocating face, surrounded by the family’s care, affection and joking, and through the out-of-frame dying body that continues to live on in her children’s every word, every breath. (Yann Lardeau)