The Ravine of Goodbye (2013)

Directed by: Tatsushi Ohmori
Country: Japan

Movie Review: Tatsushi Ohmori adapts Shuichi Yoshida’s novel for the big screen, in this depressive drama shaped in familiar tones and hidden mysteries. The film starts with Shunsuke Ozaki (Shima Onishi) and his lover, Kanako (Yoko Maki), sharing intimate moments while their neighbor next door is arrested for the murder of her own little son. The couple seemed not to be much affected by this happening, despite knowing the victim and his mother. A few days later, Ozaki is also arrested for supposedly involvement in the crime, after a phone call from his lover telling the police that he was in a sexual relationship with the neighbor. In order to find all the answers, journalist Watanabe (Nao Omori) whose wife is giving him a hard time, starts his own investigation and coming to the conclusion that Kanako is the same woman Ozaki raped 15 years ago when he was a promising baseball player at college. Not very expeditious in its development, the film moves in sinuous ways, never reaching acceptable levels of discernment or even transmitting truthfulness. Some scenes that were meant to mix sadness, seriousness, and tension, ended up becoming artless and trapped in innocuous dialogues. Awarded at the 35th Moscow Film Festival with the special jury prize, “The Ravine of Goodbye” was imprecise, fastidious, and misrepresented in psychological terms, factors that won’t contribute for us to keep it in mind.