Lost Paradise
失楽園
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A middle-aged editor and a calligraphy teacher choose a love suicide over their marriages; 失楽園 became a national buzzword.
Shoichiro Kuki, fifty, was editor-in-chief at a Tokyo publishing house until a clash with the sales department, over his refusal to bend on what he published, got him moved to the research office. There he compiles a history of the Showa era with little to do, and is looking into the Sada Abe case of 1936. His marriage to Fumie, who designs tiles at home, is not unhappy, but something in it no longer fits. His friend Kinugawa, who works at a culture centre, introduces him to Rinko Matsubara, thirty-eight, who teaches calligraphy there. At twenty-five Rinko made an arranged marriage to Haruhiko, a medical researcher, upright, stiff and jealous. They have no children and hardly ever sleep together.
Kuki and Rinko begin an affair of hotel rooms and nights away, telling everyone they are working. On the night Rinko's beloved stepfather dies, Kuki telephones to say he wants to see her, and she goes to him. An anonymous letter reaches Kuki's company claiming that he pursued and pressured Rinko, and a director calls him in to answer it. Kuki resigns. Rinko asks her husband for a divorce, and he refuses; she breaks with him and with her mother and goes to Kuki. Kuki's wife asks him for a divorce; he hesitates, then accepts it and leaves home. Kuki's daughter, Chika, watches her parents' marriage change and cannot understand it.
They decide to die together, and tell no one. At a hot-spring inn deep in the snow, in a room where snow falls beyond the half-open window, they end their lives in each other's arms. The film closes on the post-mortem report of how they were found.
Starring
Koji Yakushoas Shoichiro Kuki
A fifty-year-old editor pushed aside at his publishing house, who falls into an affair that takes over his life.
Shoichiro Kuki’s story
Kuki, fifty, was a respected editor until a clash with the sales department left him compiling a history of the Showa era in a research office, reading up on the Sada Abe case. His friend Kinugawa introduces him to Rinko, and Kuki pursues her with an earnest insistence until she gives in. Their weekends become hotel rooms and nights away. He calls her on the night of her stepfather's wake, and she comes to him in mourning. When an anonymous letter reaches his company, he resigns; when his wife, Fumie, asks for a divorce, he hesitates, then agrees and leaves home. Rinko's wish to die at the height of their love becomes his own. Telling no one, he goes with her to a hot-spring inn deep in the snow, and they end their lives together.
Hitomi Kurokias Rinko Matsubara
A 38-year-old calligraphy teacher in a sexless arranged marriage, who gives herself entirely to the affair.
Rinko Matsubara’s story
Rinko teaches calligraphy at a culture centre, where she is known for her flawless regular script. At twenty-five she made an arranged marriage to Haruhiko, a medical researcher; they have no children and hardly ever sleep together. She holds off Kuki's insistent courtship, then gives in, and is drawn ever deeper into the affair. On the night of her beloved stepfather's wake, she slips away from her husband and mother to meet Kuki at a hotel. Haruhiko learns of the affair through a detective agency and refuses to divorce her, to make her suffer. Rinko breaks with him and with her mother and goes to Kuki. It is she who first wishes to die at the height of their love. At a hot-spring inn deep in the snow, they end their lives in each other's arms.
Akira Teraoas Kinugawa
Kuki's friend at a culture centre, who introduces him to Rinko and gives him advice over dinner.
Toshio Shibaas Haruhiko Matsubara
Rinko's husband, a medical researcher, upright and jealous, who refuses her a divorce.
Tomoko Hoshinoas Fumie Kuki
Kuki's wife, a designer who has long resented his devotion to work and in the end asks for a divorce.
Yoshino Kimuraas Chika
Kuki's married daughter, who senses her parents' marriage coming apart and cannot make sense of it.
Why it matters
Lost Paradise made adultery a national conversation. Junichi Watanabe's novel ran in the Nikkei, Japan's business daily, sold more than 2.6 million copies, and gave the country its buzzword of 1997, shitsurakuen; the film was the second-highest-grossing Japanese film of the year after Princess Mononoke, and Hitomi Kuroki won the Japan Academy Prize for best actress. It speaks to something real: marriages that are not unhappy but have gone silent and sexless, and people in middle age who feel their lives closing in. What it does with that is harder to accept. It treats a double suicide as the only way to keep a love from ageing, and stages two deaths as a consummation, while the wife, the husband and the daughter left behind barely figure. It leaves open whether a passion that can be kept only by dying was ever an answer to a silent marriage.