A Long Goodbye

On their father’s seventieth birthday, Mari and Humi hear from their mother that he has been diagnosed with dementia. The sisters try to prepare their mother for what is coming and to steady themselves. As the illness advances the father slowly moves away, and the goodbye is stretched over a long time. The title says as much about that length. The account does not make the illness into material for drama; it keeps it inside the daily life of the family. Preparing food and setting the table run all through the film. The distance between the one who forgets and those who go on remembering him stands at the centre. Yu Aoi, Yuko Takeuchi and Tsutomu Yamazaki appear in Ryota Nakano’s hundred and twenty seven minute Japanese film, completed in 2019.