1 Litre of Tears

Aya is fifteen. Her family runs a tofu shop and she is about to start high school. For a while now strange things have been happening: she falls often, her walk has changed, her hands do not move the way she wants. Her mother takes her to the doctor. The diagnosis is spinocerebellar degeneration: the body slowly goes out of control while the mind stays clear to the end. The story is real: Aya Kito was born in 1962, received this diagnosis at fifteen and died at twenty-five. She kept a diary through her illness, writing until her hands would no longer work. It was published in Japan shortly before she died and sold in the millions. The film, directed by Riki Okamura, rests on that diary. Ninety-eight minutes. The story does not turn the illness into a lesson; what it tells is a person still being there while losing her own body.