This delicate portrait of loss and regeneration is the debut feature of Hirokazu Kore-eda, one of Japan’s foremost contemporary filmmakers. Like Yasujiro Ozu before him, Hirokazu Kore-eda has a rare sensitivity to the place of individuals within the natural world, a cautious faith in the restorative powers of nature, family and romantic love, and an equally strong conviction, expressed with the lightest of touches, that some things can never be restored.

A young woman, Yumiko (Makiko Esumi) becomes troubled by the notion that she brings death to people close to her. She still dreams of her grandmother who she lost when she was 12. Now married with a young son, she and her husband Ikuo (Tadanobu Asano) appear to be happy together, but Yumiko’s life is abruptly changed by her husband’s sudden death – and was it an accident or suicide? Trying to cope with her loss, eventually Yumiko remarries and perhaps can find happiness again with Tamio (Taskashi Naito), but on a return to her old home, a flood of troubling memories begin to haunt her.