Performing Kaoru's Funeral

Directed by Noriko Yuasa

When a screenwriter named KAORU dies suddenly, she leaves behind a tangle of relations who are all pulled together for the final act in her life: performing her funeral. The chief mourner is her ex-husband, Jun. A failed actor, he drifts around Tokyo as a driver for callgirls. He has to clean himself up to lead the ceremony down in the small village in Okayama that KAORU came from. There, he meets a host of eccentric characters, TV people, and KAORU ’s daughter, all of whom have complicated feelings for the recently departed. As can be guessed, the funeral becomes chaotic as people quarrel and fight but the fact that KAORU was loved is not in doubt as nostalgia, bitterness, and affection for the woman come out from each mourner in comic confrontations.