Film: Maborosi / Hirokazu Koreeda/ 1995/ 1hr 50mins/ subtitles/ 12A

Yumiko is troubled by the notion that she brings death to people close to her. Following the loss of her grandmother and husband, she remarries and begins to find happiness anew. But on a return to her old home for her brother’s wedding, a flood of troubling memories begins to haunt her.

Koreeda’s first fiction feature before the award-winning Shoplifters is an exquisite meditation on loss, loneliness, uncertainty, and coming to terms with the past.

Dr Dario Llinares is a film scholar, podcaster, and writer whose work explores many aspects of cinema as a sensory and cultural experience. He is the co-founder and co-host of the award-winning podcast The Cinematologists, which for over a decade has examined film culture through in-depth conversations, screenings, and live events. Dario also writes the Substack Cinema Body / Cinema Mind, a platform dedicated to philosophical reflections on film, spectatorship, and media.

The BFI's Too Much: Melodrama on Film project is possible with support of the BFI Film Audience Network, awarding funds from the National Lottery to bring this project to more audiences across the UK is possible with support of the BFI Film Audience Network, awarding funds from the National Lottery to bring this project to more audiences across the UK

Heightened emotions, sideways glances and strong shadows, drive the emotional and expressive weight in these Japanese melodramas

Conflicts between the modern and traditional where displays of respect and decency are expected. These films capture where dress codes shift, and women’s values and freedom are challenged.  

Other screenings as part of this special programme:

• Floating Clouds (Naruse) Tuesday 25 November
• Woman of Tokyo (Ozu) Thursday 27 November
• When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Naruse) Tuesday 2 December
• No Regrets for our Youth (Kurosawa) Tuesday 9 December