ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Jade Kurikoko I saw this movie at my local video store and I didn't know anything about it, only rented it because I like cherry blossoms (Don't ask why, I really rented because of the name of the movie). At first I thought the movie was Japanese but when I found out it was German I was kind of surprised and pleased because I like German films. All I can say this movie is extremely melancholic, it deals with grief, and a guilty husband who didn't fulfill his wife's last wish. The scenery, both in Germany and Japan is beautiful. The story moved me, I was sad when the movie ended, and left me with kind of an emptiness, it made me feel like you're alone in the world and I kind of hated the poor man.

WilliamCKH This is a beautiful film exploring the contrast of day to day existence with glimpses of the eternal. The death of Trudi gives Rudi an opportunity to learn more about his wife, learn things he wouldn't have known were it not for her death. Not yet able to let her go, Rudi accompanies Trudi's spirit to Japan, to be with her and the things she loved. In spending time with both, he quickly fills the emptiness left by her death. Through Butoh, he is slowly able to let go, by hanging on only gently. The Cherry Blossoms represent the impermanence of things, the loss of loved ones, the meeting of strangers...all stops along an ephemeral world. Mount Fuji, shy, yet mighty, represents the eternal. A contrast of the letting go, and holding on in memory. Even the things we thought we knew, our way of life, our children, our spouse, ourselves.... they may one day be strangers to us..but changing...may one day be again known.

hasosch This movie has caused considerable misunderstandings - both concerning the use of a Japanese term in the title as well as the Japanese signs shown in the movie. Let me say that this film is about the cross-cultural relevance of Japanese traditions for a fairly simply-minded Bavarian couple. She could never fulfill her dream to become a Japanese shadow-dancer and he did not realize that their homely harmony was merely a facade. After his wife's death, the man is told by his son that he did not know who his wife was.She had a dream to see the Fudjiyama, but although her husband is diagnosed terminally ill, she passes away six months before him. He does not know his disease. Crowded with guilt he decides to fulfill his wife's dream. He puts on her clothes under his owns and flies to Tokyo where his son lives. Because the welcome is rather frosty and the staying together problematic, he meets an 18 years old girl who understands that he is traveling with his wife on his body and determined to show her the beloved Fudjiyama.A very long time ago, people invented signs merely for the sake of communicating absent, far or abstract objects. The signs should substitute the objects by representing them. If people needed the objects, they could stick to them and just let the signs aside. However, what should they do when the original objects are gone? Then, there is the memory in the heads, the memory also consists of signs, but they are dissipating and fragile. So, the yearning for the objects behind the signs was coming up. Was there a kind of magic who would transform the picture of a person into the real person? On the idea that the clothes that have touched the body of a saint, are holy signs, the whole relic-system of the Catholic church is built. People travel around the world to visit the places where famous persons lived - as if their "ghost" would still house in their ancient apartments. People believe in the traces that beloved people left, because when the people are gone, this is all that is left. That the man decides to put on the clothes of his passed wife, has a nice parallel in many languages where the clothes that are most closely to the body are called "little body" like German "Leibchen" for "Leib" (body). The bra that held once a part of the wife's body possibly still holds her scent, so a part of her must still be present in this bra, and although the bra is only a sign for her, this is the ultimate approximation that her husband can reach towards her after she has been gone.

janos451 Doris Dörrie's "Cherry Blossoms" - opening "Berlin and Beyond" Thursday, in U.S. release on Friday - has two original titles, one in German: "Kirschblüten," which means cherry blossoms, and another in Japanese: "Hanami," which doesn't.The Japanese equivalent to the English and German titles would be "sakura"; "hanami" is a national ceremony/celebration/holiday of WATCHING the blossoms open. Dating back to the 8th century, hanami is an event without parallel outside Japan.The difference between the titles is a subtle, but meaningful message. Just as the blossoms in themselves are different from the veritable cult surrounding them in Japan, Dörrie's characters live in two different worlds, acting differently, first clashing (similarly to "Lost in Translation") and then - somewhat mysteriously - cohere. With this complex, effective, and moving story, Dörrie, who has spent more than three decades writing and directing "interesting and different" films of varying quality, has reached a pinnacle of her career. (She owes a debt of gratitude to Yasujiro Ozu, especially his "Tokyo Story.")"Germans and Japanese," Dörrie has said, "are really very much alike — incredibly repressed and very irrational at the same time." This vague and rather ridiculous generalization actually seems to come to life in "Cherry Blossoms." One of Germany's best-known TV stars, Elmar Wepper, appears in his first movie role, and he nails the character of Rudi Angermeier, a cartoonishly ordinary man on an extraordinary journey. Unknown to him, he is near the end of his life, as he slowly, believably emerges from a stolid German middle-class life of unvariable routine to traverse distance and radically different cultures, all the way to Mount Fuji, dancing butoh.There are two remarkable co-stars along Rudi's adventure: his wife, Trudi, played by the glamorous actress Hannelore Elsner, appearing heroically unglamorous here to fit the role of a plain housefrau; and Aya Irizuki as Yu.Yu is one of those rare cinematic creations, a character you may not understand, but one who will stay with you. This waif, runaway, street artist is as bizarre a representative of Japan as - going back to "Lost in Translation" again - Bill Murray's Premium Fantasy woman ("Rip my stockings!") and yet she also evokes Giulietta Masina's character in "La Strada," a couple of continents away.Watching Rudi and Yu under the cherry blossoms, with the strangely elusive Mount Fuji in the background finally peeking out from behind the clouds, is among the more memorable scenes in contemporary cinema.