Fireworks

It's been three or more years. I was kind of afraid to rewatch Hana-bi. Afraid that i may have not liked what i consider to be among my top 10 favorite movies that much. But lately I've been listening to the incredible masterpiece of a soundtrack by Hisaishi and i got over this "fear". And I was thankfully wrong. Actually, I may have appreciated it even more. I guess that I've matured my outlook on the movie as i grew old(er). I was keen to notice many details that i scrubbed over the first two times. I'd just say that Hana-bi is humanity narrated by silence. But it's too reductive. Still, i don't want to run endless circles around it, since the poetry of it lays in its simplicity. Or, maybe more fittingly, modesty. This time i felt that Nishi and his wife's relationship was even more tender. It's those small little things, the laughs. The opportunity to feel like young kids before leaping into the void (that in this film becomes beautiful and to be revered) that is death. The coda never fails to move me. I always shed some tears. The aspect that was the most enticing to me, in this watch, was friendship between the three old colleagues. Horibe's character stays as my favorite. He's a bastion of resilience but thankfully Kitano's sensitivity is so big and emphatic that he realizes that resilience ain't just a big and devoid word but is actually a harsh and almost impossible path. Horime's condition is a mirror to Kitano's tragic accident that happened just 3 years prior. In fact, Horibe's paintings are actually Kitano's. And i really loved the role that they have in the movie, expecially in the montage between the flowers and Nishi painting the getaway car. It's really a perfect synthesis of the human condition, to me. And i absolutely agree that creativity can be a rope to salvation. It's actually so impressive to me that Nishi's wife only says two words for the entirety of the movie: "ありがとう || ごめんね"