Dir/Wri: Patrick Dickinson | Cast:: Lily Franky, Ryo Nishikido, Tae Kimura, Rin Takanashi | UK/Japan. 2022. 94′
Japanese domestic dramas are often described as tender and this is the case for the aptly entitled Cottontail which would have benefited from a bit more astringency in telling its worthwhile story of family loss and grieving.
Patrick Dickinson’s humanistic reconciliation drama, based on his semi-autobiographical short Usagi-San (2013), opens in Tokyo where a Kenzaburo (veteran actor Lily Franky) is mourning the recent death of his wife Akiko.
Akiko, a fan of Beatrix Potter’s tales (hence the film’s title), expressed a wish to have her ashes scattered on Lake Windermere in tribute to a memorable childhood holiday there during the 1960s. So Kenzaburo and his son Toshi, his wife and daughter, duly set off on a journey to England where, united by grief, and in the company of strangers, their tricky relationship will be tested to the limit.
Kenzaburo, a bit of a loner, somehow manages to leave the rest of the family in London whence he makes his way north where, on the pretext of losing his way, he stays with farmer John (Ciaran Hinds), a recent widower, and his sympathetic daughter Mary (Aoife Hinds) who, touched by the foreigner’s diffidence and disorientation, offers to drive the meek and mild Kenzaburo up to the Lake District. Liberated from his family, Kenzaburo forms a warm bond with his new friends.
The story unfolds mostly from Kenzaburo’s perspective, and he certainly gives the most nuanced performance as he tries to unburden himself and explain away the family’s past when he finally catches up with his son, Dickinson making use of flashbacks. Although words ‘don’t come easily’ to a man unused to expressing his feelings verbally there’s a gentle delicacy to this father despite his repressed nature. Toshi is driven to tears but Kenzaburo remains reserved, rather as if something is buried in the past and still needs to surface.
The gentle beauty of the English countryside and rural setting triumph above the gracefully told but rather unremarkable storyline, and cinematographer Mark Wolf certainly makes this an attractive film to watch despite its leisurely pacing that possibly sees Dickinson influenced by the style of Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu in Late Spring and Tokyo Story. @MeredithTaylor
IN CINEMAS FROM 14 FEBRUARY 2025