![]() Still, middle-aged loner Sentaro (Masatoshi Nagase, in what may become his most internationally visible turn since Jim Jarmusch’s “Mystery Train”) is not feeling the joys of spring: His dutiful maintenance of a fixed routine masks a sordid past for which he’s still paying an arduous debt. Marshmallowy clusters of cherry blossom flood the screen in the film’s opening frames the trees will serve as both a symbolic motif and a seasonal marker of time throughout. Those who cringe reflexively at such New Age sentiment won’t find much to appreciate here, though “An’s” fey sincerity isn’t in question. It’s a line you wouldn’t hear outside a Kawase joint, save, perhaps, for the most opaque stretches of latter-day Malick. “Listen for the stories the beans tell,” the pic’s elderly heroine earnestly advises her younger employer, as she teaches him how to make the eponymous paste. Though based on a novel by Durian Sukegawa, “An” follows suit, with food here serving as an extension of nature. ![]() ![]() A consistent underlying concern of Kawase’s cinema has been the unspoken bond between man and his environment. ![]()
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