Kikoeteru, furi wo sita dake (Just Pretended to Hear)

Japan 2011, 99 min, Japanese, age recommendation: 9 years and up

Sachi is an introverted little girl. Her mother dies unexpectedly and although she doesn’t shed a tear, her pain is nonetheless deep and keen. Helpless, Sachi’s father dons his starched shirt and perfect tie and tries his best pick up his work-a-day routine once more. Sachi’s only comfort is a necklace with a ring that belonged to her mother. This keepsake helps Sachi to believe that her mother is always near, protecting her. Bereft, lonely and consumed by grief, her father descends at home into a kind of dementia. And so Sachi will have to manage by herself somehow.

Are there such things as ghosts? Her new girlfriend at school certainly thinks so. But when the existence of an afterworld is refuted during a lesson Sachi loses the one thing that was keeping her going. All at once, she feels vulnerable and brutally exposed to boundless, unbearable emptiness. In long, intense shots, the director succeeds in creating an unsolvable discord between childlike belief and rational thought. Ultimately, the loss of naïve hope can also be seen as a new beginning.