I enjoyed nearly every moment of the film. But it just lacked substance.
At the end of the movie I felt that its reason for being was to depict a voice from the grave. It did that not badly. But it did nothing else.
Things I liked: Atmosphere. Pace. Images. Touches of cultural differences (all of which might just as well have been learned by the filmmakers in other movies). Seeing Keira Knightley in bed (yes, that bed). Woo woo. Seeing the Mogami River (I have my reasons).
Things I didn't like: The typical Hollywood depiction of a years-long-married couple acting like they are on an eternal honeymoon (well, maybe not eternal. Ha ha). They act always just as enamored of each other as when they were first seeing each other romantically, pre-marriage. Except, Herve does get the occasional glazed look just before he passionately takes her in his arms, kisses her with considerable verve, and professes undying love for her.
Bad editing:
That woman whom we don't know suddenly having the baby we tend to assume is the Joncour's, but isn't.
He mentions that the lilies bloomed a few days after she died, but we had seen white lilies blooming in profusion near their house long before that. So, big deal.
Puzzles:
The broken glasses of the Dutch guy which mean? Not a clue. Oh, he was killed? So what? It had zero relevance.
The one-armed billiard shot and the guy packing up all and leaving town. So what? Zero significance and no sense.
Why did the Japanese master guy not kill Herve with his rifle? He was afraid of some CSI team being kicked into action in the remote mountains of Northern Japan in the late 19th century that would somehow incriminate him? Not likely, is it? After all, we have the broken glasses which show what he is capable of. Not to mention the boy. So why didn't he? No clue. Was it just to show his subordinate warriors how weak he was?
It's a pity Herve couldn't have fallen into lust with a young and attractive wife of a local French nobleman. It sure could have saved him a lot of travel time and expense.
Basically, the story is no different (apart from cinematic exaggerations) than some happily married man developing a crush on and fantasizing about a local grocery store clerk. After all, the movie made it clear that his relationship with the "Japanese" exotic mystery woman went unconsummated. What a naive jerk. "I'm getting a little horny for some strange. Even though I haven't yet scored with her I think I'll go off on a month's long horrendously grueling and perilous trek, risking my life and livelihood at every moment and every turn and leave my young, horny, Keira-Knightley wife, who is avid to become with child, alone to stew in her desperately lonely bed during the dark and bleak nights of my interminably long absence; like none of the fathers of her pupils in this small village are going to notice her situation and seek numerous consultations, one-to-one with her, over their kids' "academic progress." And I'm going to journey to the far side of the Earth to the distant mountains of Japan where I can diddle around and not actually do anything with that exotic woman except possibly again wait for two days while I get nothing but stood up by her not appearing, at all, even once, like in those last two days. And as if she wasn't in a frighteningly dangerous liaison of her own: lethally dangerous to us both. But, you know, I kinda like that free chick she or her master pimped me. Hope I can get some of that again." Yep, total jerk; which by association implicates this movie.
The second letter that was read by the madam was written in a too direct way betraying its non-Japanese orientation, and, as well, mimicked the earlier stated opinion of the madam. I thought the madam was making up the words she was saying and not telling the truth about what was written. A purveyor of commercial sex might be jealous of someone who had found something she no longer could ever find: a profound emotional attachment with a true lover (which in this case wasn't true because the infatuation was unconsummated).
I figured Herve was going to have to get a second opinion about what was written in the letter which would be shocking and deeply moving. In fact, we have only the madam's word for what was contained in the letter. The madam, a woman who, by running a brothel, lived a life of lies and illusion dominated by commercial sex, may have found the true contents of the letter so contrary to her jaded world view that she felt compelled to lie to and somehow injure Herve, was what I was thinking. When he found out the truth we would be off on a journey now of passionate adventure and connection. I guess the movie was already supposed to be that. It wasn't.
So when the letter was said by the madam (who could make up anything she wanted because no one else could verify what she said, she being the only person in the movie who could decipher the unreadable, cryptic Japanese) to be written by Helene I accepted that as the shocking and deeply moving aspect of the true meaning of the letter.
But the story told by Herve to Ludovic may not be the true story. We have only the man-hating madam's words that it is so. And Herve is a man.
At the end of the movie I felt that its reason for being was to depict a voice from the grave. It did that not badly. But it did nothing else.
Things I liked: Atmosphere. Pace. Images. Touches of cultural differences (all of which might just as well have been learned by the filmmakers in other movies). Seeing Keira Knightley in bed (yes, that bed). Woo woo. Seeing the Mogami River (I have my reasons).
Things I didn't like: The typical Hollywood depiction of a years-long-married couple acting like they are on an eternal honeymoon (well, maybe not eternal. Ha ha). They act always just as enamored of each other as when they were first seeing each other romantically, pre-marriage. Except, Herve does get the occasional glazed look just before he passionately takes her in his arms, kisses her with considerable verve, and professes undying love for her.
Bad editing:
That woman whom we don't know suddenly having the baby we tend to assume is the Joncour's, but isn't.
He mentions that the lilies bloomed a few days after she died, but we had seen white lilies blooming in profusion near their house long before that. So, big deal.
Puzzles:
The broken glasses of the Dutch guy which mean? Not a clue. Oh, he was killed? So what? It had zero relevance.
The one-armed billiard shot and the guy packing up all and leaving town. So what? Zero significance and no sense.
Why did the Japanese master guy not kill Herve with his rifle? He was afraid of some CSI team being kicked into action in the remote mountains of Northern Japan in the late 19th century that would somehow incriminate him? Not likely, is it? After all, we have the broken glasses which show what he is capable of. Not to mention the boy. So why didn't he? No clue. Was it just to show his subordinate warriors how weak he was?
It's a pity Herve couldn't have fallen into lust with a young and attractive wife of a local French nobleman. It sure could have saved him a lot of travel time and expense.
Basically, the story is no different (apart from cinematic exaggerations) than some happily married man developing a crush on and fantasizing about a local grocery store clerk. After all, the movie made it clear that his relationship with the "Japanese" exotic mystery woman went unconsummated. What a naive jerk. "I'm getting a little horny for some strange. Even though I haven't yet scored with her I think I'll go off on a month's long horrendously grueling and perilous trek, risking my life and livelihood at every moment and every turn and leave my young, horny, Keira-Knightley wife, who is avid to become with child, alone to stew in her desperately lonely bed during the dark and bleak nights of my interminably long absence; like none of the fathers of her pupils in this small village are going to notice her situation and seek numerous consultations, one-to-one with her, over their kids' "academic progress." And I'm going to journey to the far side of the Earth to the distant mountains of Japan where I can diddle around and not actually do anything with that exotic woman except possibly again wait for two days while I get nothing but stood up by her not appearing, at all, even once, like in those last two days. And as if she wasn't in a frighteningly dangerous liaison of her own: lethally dangerous to us both. But, you know, I kinda like that free chick she or her master pimped me. Hope I can get some of that again." Yep, total jerk; which by association implicates this movie.
The second letter that was read by the madam was written in a too direct way betraying its non-Japanese orientation, and, as well, mimicked the earlier stated opinion of the madam. I thought the madam was making up the words she was saying and not telling the truth about what was written. A purveyor of commercial sex might be jealous of someone who had found something she no longer could ever find: a profound emotional attachment with a true lover (which in this case wasn't true because the infatuation was unconsummated).
I figured Herve was going to have to get a second opinion about what was written in the letter which would be shocking and deeply moving. In fact, we have only the madam's word for what was contained in the letter. The madam, a woman who, by running a brothel, lived a life of lies and illusion dominated by commercial sex, may have found the true contents of the letter so contrary to her jaded world view that she felt compelled to lie to and somehow injure Herve, was what I was thinking. When he found out the truth we would be off on a journey now of passionate adventure and connection. I guess the movie was already supposed to be that. It wasn't.
So when the letter was said by the madam (who could make up anything she wanted because no one else could verify what she said, she being the only person in the movie who could decipher the unreadable, cryptic Japanese) to be written by Helene I accepted that as the shocking and deeply moving aspect of the true meaning of the letter.
But the story told by Herve to Ludovic may not be the true story. We have only the man-hating madam's words that it is so. And Herve is a man.