Serene, slow-paced and oddly affecting. Such is Every Day A Good Day, the latest work by Japanese director Tatsushi Ohmori, a drama that revolves around the meticulously detailed and delicate Japanese tea ceremony. The film is, sadly, the final movie role for Kirin Kiki, the beloved veteran of Japanese cinema. She passed away last September at the age of 75.
Previously known for more controversial and unconventional works such as The Whispering Of The Gods (2005) and The Ravine Of Goodbye (2013), Ohmori makes a surprising switch in direction for Every Day A Good Day. With its slow and subtle approach, the film works almost like a documentary -- a style we're more used to seeing in works by contemporaries like Kore-eda Hirokazu.
Based on a collection of essays by Noriko Morishita, Every Day A Good Day follows 20 years in the life of Noriko (Haru Kuroki). We are introduced to Noriko as a confused third-year college student whose parents view her as an unfocused underachiever. She compares herself unfavourably to her smarter, prettier cousin Michiko (Mikako Tabe), who appears to have her whole life already planned out with a clarity Noriko could only dream of.
At the urging of her mother, Noriko, along with Michiko, decides to attend traditional tea ceremony classes with Takeda (Kirin Kiki), an old lady who lives nearby. The two students are introduced to the ceremony's detailed choreography -- from the precise manner in which the water is poured to the correct way to fold napkins, following 20 steps. Noriko questions the point of it all.
"You don't have to understand what it means," Takeda tells her. "Just learn with your body and eventually your heart will be there too."
Little by little, Noriko begins to develop a fondness for the ceremony, recognising its beauty, as well as its meditative qualities. As the years pass by, Noriko experiences love and loss, triumph and tragedy. She and Michiko take different paths. Michiko eventually stops going to the tea classes and soon gets married. But Noriko remains, becoming ever more immersed in the ceremony over the two decades that we follow her story.
The narrative style in Every Day A Good Day is rather unique and interesting. The film doesn't give backstories for the characters or show relationships between characters outside of the classroom. The only way in which we sense change in Noriko is through her thoughts and feelings, shared in narration, making you feel like you're watching a documentary rather than a proper movie.
The almost all-female cast is delightful. (The only male character in the film -- Noriko's father -- is played by Shingo Tsurumi.) Kirin Kiki is quality, as you'd expect, delivering such a natural and typically effective performance that you have no problem buying her as a tea ceremony sensei. Haru Kuroki's Noriko is a believable, sympathetic character with very human flaws breaking through her calm exterior.
The visuals here are stunning, the camera often detaching itself from the story to focus on the delicate beauty of nature: raindrops falling on Takeda's garden, an image of a waterfall whose sound echoes in Noriko's mind -- all suggesting Zen Buddhism and the ways life and nature are connected.
With its slow plot development and the monotony of much of the narrative, Every Day A Good Day won't appeal to all audiences. But if you can try to appreciate the film as a whole, you may find it a rewarding experience.
