Review of 'Cherry Blossoms'

A very moving film about an old German couple, their  relationship with their children and each other, roads not taken and lives not lived to the full...described as slow and beautiful, it was indeed beautiful and very clever - lots of story told with a few images and expressions rather than laboured through narrative and dialogue. Despite the slowness and the length it didn't drag at all.

Hard to tell much more without spoiling, but there's death and grieving, children who find their ageing parents a burden, connection between people who have suffered and are suffering...but it's not a downer of a film, though I was near to tears several times.

Small note: at the beginning of the film the woman in the couple wants to go on an adventure but says 'my husband doesn't like adventures'. We see him enjoying his very routinized Bavarian life, but also them walking together in the mountains, which areuji stunning. She wants to go to Japan, he says 'Fuji is just another mountain.' I think he has a point, though the film later says he is wrong.

Watched at Lansdown Hall as part of the Stroud Film Festival.